What I see and What I wish to see...

Agneepath: A review

2012-01-28T09:15:00.000-08:00

Theme: Gore, Violence, Revenge

Treatment: Take a two cups of LOTR, mix in some Rambo as per taste, add three spoons of Harry Potter and sprinkle with KJo glamour.

Ok so clearly the movie didn't inspire me to sing praises. At a running time of almost 3hours, the songs are a painful addition that could've and should've been done away with.

The movie otherwise was well made, had superb cinematography and some brilliant performances!

The best was definitely Rishi Kapoor. One of his most evil roles but the emotions displayed is just marvellous. He is a doting father, a ruthless flesh trader, a shrewd drug lord and an undying old man. He speaks volumes through his kajrari eyes. Hay!

Sanjay Dutt was well menacing. And he was supposed to be. All through the movie I was only distracted by his striking similarity to Gollum!

The ladies were unnecessary. Priyanka Chopra should be adopted by Colgate. All she did in the entire movie was dance, be hyper, try and show off her cleavage and grin like an idiot. Katrina Kaif was even worse! What the hell was she thinking?! No wait, I'm sure she wasn't thinking. I was disgusted when Sheela ki Jawani hit the market and since then nothing seems to appear sleazy to me anymore. Looks like the censor board is sleeping.

Hrithik Roshan was well, ahem. LOL. The threatre I went to in Jamshedpur had men whistling and clapping at random scenes. When Hrithik took his shirt off, my girl friends and I clapped! My paisa-wasool moment. LOL. On a serious note, he's done well. His angry expressions haven't changed much from the days of "Kaho naa Pyar hai" and his dialogues were so soft it was as if he was mumbling. But otherwise,as a beef cake and an actor he was pretty impressive.

Now the classic moment of the movie: During the song "chikni chameli" Katrina Kaif lights a bidi. This scene, occuring thrice in the song, carries an english subtitle saying "Cigarette Smoking is Injurious to Health". The very next shot has Sanjay Dutt smoking up from a chillum. That's not to mention the amount of cocaine being snuffed in the entire movie. Hats off to the Censor Board of India.

My Lifelong Love....

2011-12-27T09:52:00.000-08:00

I hereby declare my lifelong love for SHOES!

Heels, flats, pumps, peep-toes, wedges, ballets, sneakers, loafers, basketball shoes, sandals, slippers, stilettos, platforms, gladiators and Mary-Janes. I've had them all and currently have many of them. I just adore each one them and will adore the one I am yet to buy.

To put thing into perspective for me I'll borrow Mahi's statement. Just for reference Mahi was a character in a sitcom on TV. She once explained and I quote, " I love my shoes because of irrespective of how fat I become, my shoes will always fit me like a dream.". And to think all this while I thought I was the only one who thought like this!

Many people have asked me how many pair of shoes I own and each time I wonder if I really have that many. It never felt like too many to me, ever. I just clicked my 5most worn pairs at XL for perspective and there are exactly 5more sitting in the shoes rack waiting for their occasion. And these are only the ones I brought with me to the hostel. Ones at home would add some 5-6more at most. There i have some 15pairs of shoes. That's not much, is it? It barely covers enough for every type of occasion.

Looking back I think my love for collecting shoes began with having such a unique shoe size. I wear a size 42. That's big even by international standards, forget Indian. So understandably I have always had a trouble buying shoes that fit me, in designs that I like and prices I can afford. Till date everytime I go shopping I keep an eye out for a good deal in a sturdy or pretty(as my frame of mind maybe) pair of shoes. And considering my size and all, it isn't every trip that I find something I want or need.

But I still look out for them and I always have a few on my wishlist!

2011, A memoir

2011-12-17T01:49:00.000-08:00

Another year is coming to a close. Today on Google I came across this video on the year that was and is for another 16days.

Thinking about what it did to me, I can safely say it was a year of experiences and it made a whole new dimension of me.

I finally found my feet in the b-school and made peace with my new life, interned at one of the most iconic brands of the world-Coca Cola, met a nice bunch of people there and was reassured that this was indeed what I wish to do in my life for real, traveled business class and then by unreserved in the same day to just meet my family for a day, discovered pleasure, got my first lipstick, my first Roberto Cavalli shades, adopted pets and then lost them to nature, experienced real fear while waiting outside an operation theatre and realised what it is to be strong for another.

This year has been like none other for me. Simply amazing.

My favourite moments:

Mumbai Trip, June 2011; @bandra bandstand

My 23rd, Feb 16; @jsr

@chandil dam

feb; @bhopal

ladies; feb; @bhopal

Layla and Raphael...my angel fish. RIP

Akshita, twisha, I, shweta, shriya; day of batch photo

Areshdeep, I, aditya, twisha

Teej@XL

scary me @maxi junior's treat; august 11

OOH advertising for MAXI Mindscapes:dimensions of sports marketing

Return to Dasam falls, diwali day, 26 oct 11

mela@jsr, oct 16, 2011

bike trip to ghatshila

Tinkerbell&I

Glutton Discovery

2011-11-07T10:35:00.001-08:00

For a random errand, SN and I went to the market pretty late today. I had a class till 5:30 so it wasn't until 6:15 that we finally left for Sakchi. Give or take 30-40minutes that we took to find the required shop and buy the things needed, we were leaving the market from the exit closer to Tata Steel when a strong smell caught our attention. Now we being foodies immediately recognised this aroma as that of fresh roasted chicken and after nothing in sight, we gave up on what promised to be a delectable suprise.

But suprise it turned out to be! Right behind the auto stand was a thela surrounded by people and no prizes for guessing where the aroma was coming from. Couldn't stop ourselves from exploring and we actually found a decent crowd, well behaved and the shop owner treated us like premium princesses(which effectively we probably were). I still don't know if it was cheap or expensive, but sounded attractive to me and his turnover speed suggested that the food was definitely fresh and add to that, the barbeque was right there for all to see!

He picked out fresh pieces of marinated breast pieces in front of us and started to slowly let it char on the smoldering charcoals. Definitely not just another roasted chicken.

Being a Delhi dame, roasted chicken is same as tandoori chicken to me. Not anymore. This was real barbequed chicken and because of certain unavoidable circumstances, it was consumed almost 4hours after purchase and I must say this...it was still soft, juicy and delectible!

I'm so going to recommend it to anyone who had no qualms of admitting that street food can indeed be delicious and hygienic(as much as possible)!

Finally Jamshedpur is playing its magic on me!

ps: check location of this post for exact place!

Oh India!

2011-10-08T07:28:00.000-07:00

I for one fell in love when I was very young. Given the environment at home with a very religious nani, an unquestioning devotee as mommy, a rational believer as a father and encyclopedias as companions, I fell in love with the whole world of powerful characters that some dismiss as mythology and some revere as religion. My love was fed from all quarters and all regions of the world. My mother gave me stories of my land, my books gave me stories of Greece and Rome and my dad gave me the platform to rationalise, debate and admire. Till date I love to hear new perspectives on the same characters, new insights on what possibly drove them and discovering subtle implications of all this in our lives. More so in the life of a modern open source believer-a practicing Hindu.

The Navaratras have just gone by. Durga Puja pandals are still being dismantled across the city here in Jamshedpur. Festivities have only just begun, as Diwali is less than 20days away. I couldn't go witness the grandeur of a pandal this year and I shall regret that. But to compensate it all, I went to the next best thing-a Ravan Dahan Mahotsav.

Ironic how the most pious days of any religion come in the historical period of blood shed and death. It may be the 'evil' blood being spilled, but it is blood nonetheless. Muslims have the Ramadan, Hindus have the Navaratras! Both had their God/Goddess fight evil and conquer it. Both have their holy days. But I'm digressing.

Coming back to what I was hoping to write on was that the Ravan dahan mahotsav got me thinking. It was only my second time at the event and the last time I went there it was with my parents and I was hardly 8 or 9 years old. This time I was with my classmates and the whole environment though festive did not seep in. But it was fun and it was a much needed outing. And it got me intersted in what my father had told me about the whole Ravan burning exercise. As it happens, in some part of the country, there are tribes who do not believe in celebrating this victory of good over evil and do not burn Ravan's effigies. Why? Well, because Mandodri belonged to their tribe! Interesting implications to life, no?

Today a newspaper on the newstand outside the mess caught my eye simoly because it spoke of something similar. There happens to be a tribe in the Chota Nagpur plateau region that does not believe in festivities of the Navratras but instead treats it as a period of mourning! They consider themselves decendants of Mahishasur who was the chief demon to be slayed by Devi in this nine day period and they think the mythology is unfairly skewed against them. Here's the news item: http://business-standard.com/india/news/the-demons-brood/451796/

Bollywood connection

2011-10-07T06:19:00.000-07:00

It's was another boring day here on campus when a friend's status message popped up on Gtalk with a youtube link and a time. Scrolling down to that exact second I saw something that made me laugh and, in a weird way, proud.
What was it, you ask? The screen shot below is what got me rolling in mirth. You see, the books on the screen are our course specific readings, bound together and given to us each term by the profs. Everyone who's been at xlri at some point, has I'm sure seen these handouts. And when they make it to a random shot in a more random Akshay Kumar movie, it just goes to show there's an Xler somewhere behind that camera. And that makes me happy :)
Oh and another funny coincidence-Prof Sharad Sarin is teaching me this term! So you see, I have a super famous prof :D


XLRI course handouts feature in a bollywood movie!

Oh smart journalists!

2011-09-15T23:02:00.000-07:00

Stumbleupon got me to this amazing photograph. Some journalists will spare no one :D I like it!

Paint me red

2011-09-12T10:44:00.000-07:00

I'd always seen women wearing red on their nails and toes and lips etc and I used to keep wondering how they pulled it off. I was convinced I couldn't ever do it. Till a friend got me inspired and I bought myself a fire engine red nailpaint and painted my toes and fingernails a BIG BOLD RED!
Teamed with an LV tote in a similar colour, I felt invincible! If only I had bought those red peep toes my ma wanted me to buy, I'd have been walking on sunshine!
Maybe it's the imagination or maybe it's the culture...but red definitely adds a power. And it gets instant attention. My season's favourite colour just got picked.

Street finds-billboards

2011-09-12T10:16:00.000-07:00

On my last trip to Mumbai I found a very interesting billboard..one that appealed to me as a consumer and as a wannabe marketer. Sharing it here :)

This is my town

2011-09-03T23:32:00.000-07:00

Montgomery Gentry sang a very true blue song about his town. The place he knew he grew up in and the place he chose to settle. I can say I will never sing it for any of the places I have lived in because I have never belonged there. Big city girl trouble, eh?
One place that I will remember for bitter sweet reasons and that will define my career too is Jamshedpur. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd have the best time of my life thus far there. Or meet the best people or truly understand and appreciate what life is.
This is not to harp about me and my affair with the town, but the about the pretty side of it. The side I fall back on when I am alone. The side you see from the roof of my hostel on an August evening. The hills are part of the Dalma Range.

So, why'd I do it?

2011-07-22T03:28:00.000-07:00

My recent classroom sessions on consumer behaviour have been, mildly put, disturbing to me. Why is that? Because for a tweenager who decided she wanted a tattoo, she's no more a normal tweenager.

It's depressing how a tattoo is still synonymous with trying too hard, being a wannabe and with someone who seeks acceptance. Not that I didn't fight these when I first thought of getting a tattoo, convincing my family and all, but somehow now it seems quite heavy a burden to carry.

So why did I do this to myself?

Was I looking for social acceptance of some sort? Absolutely not! I knew then what I am experiencing now...being a social piranha because I have a tattoo.

Was I looking for attention? Again, no. I don't go around flaunting my tattoo and hardly mention it to anyone. I anyway wear jeans and salwars most of the day, so no, no attention.

Was I looking for a special status? A wannabe? That's hard for me to answer. I would be defensive if I said any of that. That's how people judge me and something I cannot control.

Was I being rebellious? Maybe. Some part of me was fascinated, some part of me wanted to try for the novelty. And one part of me wanted it just like I want a nice dress for an occassion-vanity!

So all in all I know I haven't changed. The matrix I build for me, wherein I have my self concept, my ideal self concept, my public self and ideal public self truthfully did not change one bit from the moment I sat down at the tattoo parlour to when I got up with a tattoo on me. But somehow the eyes that followed me did.

What hurt me most is that I had remained immune to all of criticism this long but maybe I am not strong enough to face it alone afterall. I miss being home.

Married Men...lol

2011-07-20T00:45:00.000-07:00

Yes its lust

2011-07-18T06:32:00.000-07:00

I've often seen men "admire" random women-somehow I'm all in my Rafa mode. Some of my 'favourite' RAFA moments:

Water Burial

2011-07-15T07:43:00.000-07:00

Three days before her 1st month completion as my pet, Layla breathed her last. Yesterday at 8:3opm, Layla was found dead in the glass bowl that she shared with Rafa.

It took me less than a minute and two knocks on her side of the glass bowl to realise I had lost my very sweet angel fish. My first reaction was to call my friend who'd helped me set up my aquarium and then inform my ex-roomie and now neighbour. Only when she too declared that Layla was dead did the first tears roll down. I had failed as a pet owner. I did not care enough maybe. I didn't see her fall sick. How long had she been dead before I stooped down to play with them? How did she die? Should I keep Raphael now that I had failed with Layla?

Then there was a practical side of me. How do I get Layla out without disturbing Rafa? How will I say my goodbye to Layla? I scampered to get a net n all but even after failed attempts to get it back, my friends sympathies, a forced dinner, informing ma and a few friends, I still wasnt strong enough to scoop out Layla myself. I made my friend do it. I just could stand it...I was tryin too hard not to break down and cry. Everyone was of the opinion that Layla needed a burial but I resisted. One reason was I didn't know where I could bury my fish without ever passing that place again and not missing her. And two, I didn't want her out of the water for some reason. Hence I insisted on a water burial.

Most thought it was cruel to flush down my fishie, but I considered it the best for her. She's anyway in fish heaven and she deserves to leave this avatar of hers in the same medium that was her world-in water.

Layla, I'll miss you. RIP.

Me myself and my door

2011-07-12T05:38:00.001-07:00

After much deliberation on how to proclaim my room as my room...i have done this.
Do u like it?

How to: Not kill anyone when cleaning a fish bowl

2011-06-25T22:52:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning mission: Clean my newly acquired fish bowl

Reason to do so: It's part of the ownership program :-|

My previous lessons: Theoritical. From the fish store owner to friends who've been previous fish owners, everyone gave a step wise ritual on how to do it

My self aquired lessons: Youtube. I just had to see someone else clean a fish bowl. So after watching some not so informative but very supportive videos, I decided to go ahead with it

Things I used: Scotch-brite(to clean), soft hand wash(to clean), two mugs(to transfer n keep Layla and Raphael), Medicine(for the water)

Things I did and thankfully no one saw:
I have finally understood what someone who came up with the expression "wide eyed look" meant. I got one from my fish!

I knew I would never be able to transfer my fish using a net from the bowl to a temporary bowl without feeling sick and scared. So I decided to use a mug to scoop them out and keep em. Only my fish turned out to be great actors and refused to be caught! A very scared me played hide and seek with them while they kept scooting around the bowl and I kept praying that I dont kill them. Finally a very frustrated Shivani took a deep breath, sent a prayer to the Heaven up above and dug in to catch Layla and Rafa. This is when I got my "looks". At the mouth of the mug, Rafa(the naughtier one), turned horizontal like it had died and looked at me like I was the person who did it to him. My heart broke. But I had to do this. For them and me.

The rest of the cleaning was uneventful and boring. It was more mechanical and hence easier. I will probably get faster at doing it the more I do it. All that while Layla and Rafa were quite sedate in their mugs and tryin to fool me by stopping to swim(Rafa) or coming to the edge of the mug like it's about to jump out(Layla). Finally the ordeal ended. I dumped Rafa in the antibiotic first, Layla second. Finally when I had filled the bowl with fresh water, I put more antibiotic in it and only then transfered Rafa and Layla to it. I must admit my method keeps a bit of the old dirty water in the bowl...but if that's the price for not having to hold them in a fish net out of water and possibly kill them, I'll pay.

This sunday I experienced what it is like to hold life in your hands. I also realised I was smart enough to admit 6years ago that I didn't have it in me to be a doctor. Some revelations I got today.

Raphael and Layla

2011-06-19T23:25:00.000-07:00

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A personal achievement for me-I have taken a HUGE step of adopting pets! I have always toyed with the idea of adopting pets for myself and always wanted a dog or a bear or something, I saw an opportunity in getting myself an aquarium here in the hostel and I have taken a slightly impulsive, yet deeply considered decision.
Yesterday i became the owner of a glass bowl with two Angel fish, who I have named Raphael and Layla. The names came after much deliberation-I wanted names of Angel but I also wanted exotic names. After shortlisting names and consultation with people who's opinion matters in this regards I chose Raphael and Layla. Look at it this way, I can never name anyone's kids so exotic and anyway I get to dedicate my fish to my favourite sportsman!
I have to admit I am scared! I am not a very responsible person when it comes to me and now I have fish depending on me to clean, feed and keep them alive. Admittedly my friends are as skeptical. There are already bets in place as to how long i can pull this off :-|

I hope I can be a good pet keeper for Rafa and Layla!

And it's over!

2011-06-09T05:53:00.000-07:00

After 9 full weeks of having fun, learning practical real-life stuff, staying up late, getting up early, being decently productive, wearing only drab formalish clothes, meeting geniuses of their fields and technically being on an internship, I have completed the moment of life called-Internship.

Saying it was an experience will be undermining the impact it has had on me and what all I have accomplished in it. Calling it just another internship will undermine the effort of the people around me who put together so much, just so people like me could come and ravish it! I will thus call it the "Summer of '11". Cheesy. hmmm.

I miss it and that's the shocking part. I utterly miss being in that place with those people. Funny I am. Or maybe sad

Why NOT to work from home

2011-05-26T21:01:00.000-07:00

Top of the mind recall on a pretty friday morning-Top 5reasons I should not work from home!

Reason No1: The papers being referred to and being worked on are found crumpled the morning after(because I slept on them!).

Reason No2: The laptop will not connect to the internet and then I find innovative ways to mail things using Bluetooth and GPRS! (crazy techie people)

Reason No3: The idea factory is slow and drowsy

Reason No4: The above mentioned papers get left behind at home because everything else that is BIG and BLACK (read laptop and diary) get picked up and stuffed in the bag hurrily while the poor souls of scribbled notes get left behind.

Reason No5: The mind gets accustomed to working in such a lazy, comfy fashion with pillows all around and a sprawled out me! Office chairs seem too upright post that!

The last point is aptly described below thanks to Homer :)

A pretty place called office

2011-05-19T03:29:00.000-07:00

For most people an office is a nightmare. I somehow have enjoyed my first brush with it.
The graffiti on my white board. The scribbles in my omnipresent black diary. The deep thought before my first two line email. The whole first name business.
The latter is such a pain! For someone who was taught from day one to go all protocol respecting and age respecting, this whole thing is like a system shock! Ah ma, why'd you ingrain it so deep?

Frameworks

2011-05-16T23:32:00.000-07:00

I think I've cracked the nut on why I am so frustratingly slow and stupid sometimes, especially when it comes to anything to do with my MBA. I think instinctively while the MBA gives you frameworks to think by. I work on gut feelings while MBA demands data and trends. I understand the concept and twist it to suit my abilities while MBA wants the stiff white collar to be a stiff white collar. Ah damn!

The trigger to most of my self discoveries has been my internship. The one person who loves to deal with the intangible and the almost creatives, sits with a computer and finds mathematical trends in the obscure realm of image parameters! And then when I have a math-numbed brain, I have some amazing sessions with my boss who makes me think. And you know the best part? I forget my 4Ps(again) when asked for a launch strategy and instead stare like an idiot when he finally tells me in which direction I was supposed to tread.

How will I make a success of this mba thing of I can't get myself to always be in that framework!?

Oh right, it is another framework!

Delhi Daredevils and I

2011-05-09T10:22:00.000-07:00

Date: May 3, 2011

Time: 1pm

Venue: The Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi

Occasion: Coca Cola Meet and Greet with Delhi Daredevils

Who all: I recognise Irfan Pathan(to my left) and Colin Ingram(3rd on my right); rest I am a little clueless about. I'd appreciate if you could tell me

What was I doing there: I went to meet them and have lunch. Ended up working somewhat.

Stories, tales and an exam

2011-03-29T12:07:00.000-07:00

I had a realisation of my own right now...I so want to write a story/novel/book but besides creating a character set and amazingly sweet or conflict ridden situations and a awesome couple for it, I can never decide what to do with them! I dnt fregging have a story for them...i want an ending to the love stories I start in my head. Maybe why they dnt end or even come close to any form of closure is because I dnt know how love stories are completed! Inexperience you see...darn I wanna know what happens to my characters after they've met and broken the ice and are not fighting/drinking/eating/

studying!! Yes, my characters study :P
So in short when I'm studying(yes) and studying stuff that doesnt engross me for whatever reason, I go hunting to find out what happened to my characters and where have they reached in their lives. I dnt see them often..just every exam time and everytime I think I found a face for my characters. So my faceless characters continue with their lives with and without me. Like I do mine.

Ooh la la!

2011-03-29T05:28:00.000-07:00

This is an absolutely random blog post. When I was logging, i didn't know what I wanted to write on, just that i did. Then my dashboard showed me that I had managed a whooping 100 posts! Wow! I can jab! ;)

So technically this is my 101st random musing on my life and I truthfully doubt if anyone cares! Ah well...
So I just gave another exam of another term where a good number people, as always, were practically implementing team work and yours truly kept wondering how come no one noticed all this? Or maybe they did and they were just avoiding conflict. Or maybe once you become an invigilator you can't tell the difference between what's genuine and what's not. As you can tell, probably, I am thoroughly pissed at all this.
I am pissed at people's insensitivity, lack of ethics, morality, humility and general humanity!!
Oh and yes, I found myself a new symbol for myself(I think this sentence is structured wrong)...it's a driftwood. I somehow feel like one :-|

A goodbye

2011-03-27T03:46:00.000-07:00

I just have to write this down. A single hug has triggered this post that too half an hour before an end term examination! Of all the seniors that I got to know in the past one year here, I recently said goodbye to a good lot of them. All these farewells were happy. Of all the seniors that I got to know in the past one year here, only one came to look for me to say goodbye and give me a hug. I suddenly realised she'll be the only one I'll always remember no matter what. She lived on the same floor as I and we often watched TV together...bonded over random idiot box content but now that I look back, we genuinely bonded. She was so easy to talk to and just an integral part of the 1st floor...I will miss her!
I am so sappy sometimes. Darn.

Of Mirrors

2011-03-17T00:43:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a change of mirror is all one needs to alter one's life. Like I have always believed, life has its own sweet way to teach us subtle lessons. Its upto us to take it as a learning or as just another event.
For me this post is triggered by an event. I was in the mess and I looked up into the mirror over the basin. I saw me. But I also saw a few scars from old pimples, a stray hair out of place and a few new pimples readying to take their place on my face. How come I didn't see these when I was brushing just this morning? Because the mirror changed! Or maybe just the lighting was different, but what I saw had altered.
So I learnt two things...one I needed a good facewash (:P) and two, I had to look at life from different frames. Think about it. Even physics accepts that reality changes with changing of frame of reference! How obvious it always was.
Let's look at life from differing points of view...one side is a personal me, who's just plain confused about life and the other is the professional me, who is supposed to be doing just fine. Hmm.
So what are your frames in life? How would you judge it?

just another monologue...

2011-03-11T05:39:00.000-08:00

It's been sometime now that I have had some, or ok a lot of things to talk on. Much has happened since the day my iPod and I sat together on a bench and wondered why life was so weird.
I spent two days being a pseudo intellectual thinking what would've happened to Gautam Buddha's wife after he left her in pursuit of higher goals of life. It triggered much debate within me and with my friends but I obviously have no answer.
One other interesting happening was a rather short discussion I had. It has been my observation for quite a while now that men my age tend to be more loud, immature and quite boyish while the ones who are older are more mature, stylish and smooth. It could, I now agree, be just a personal bias but it was mine. When i did express it to this particular person I got a rather interesting answer. All it said was, " You've seen a wrong sample. Maturity, style and attitude are extensions of the personality and upbringing, not just age." I was floored!
So while I enjoy this super sexy weather of purple skies, cool winds and a calming drizzle from the solitary perch of the lone balcony of this hostel, I am content. I have made peace with life today and I hope I can sustain it for a while. I do sometime miss the opportunity of sharing such simple moments of pleasure with someone but maybe another time. I hope.

Govt's gift on women's day

2011-03-08T10:35:00.000-08:00

One female independent director in firms must: MCA | mydigitalfc.com

So here's what the government does...give us another reservation. Am i estatic? I am not so sure. But a pat on their back for trying. The glass ceiling just got that much more brittle!
Happy Women's Day lovely people!

Douglas Adam's little quirky tale

2011-03-08T10:18:00.000-08:00

So as I went about stumbling over the internet I found a small tale written by Douglas Adams that I reproduce here without anyone's permission. If I am violating any laws, please let me know and I'd be happy to comply!
So here goes:

Cookies by Douglas Adams (author: "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy")

This actually did happen to a real person, and the real person was me. I had gone to catch a train. This was April 1976, in Cambridge, U.K. I was a bit early for the train. I'd gotten the time of the train wrong.

I went to get myself a newspaper to do the crossword, and a cup of coffee and a packet of cookies. I went and sat at a table.

I want you to picture the scene. It's very important that you get this very clear in your mind.

Here's the table, newspaper, cup of coffee, packet of cookies. There's a guy sitting opposite me, perfectly ordinary-looking guy wearing a business suit, carrying a briefcase.

It didn't look like he was going to do anything weird. What he did was this: he suddenly leaned across, picked up the packet of cookies, tore it open, took one out, and ate it.

Now this, I have to say, is the sort of thing the British are very bad at dealing with. There's nothing in our background, upbringing, or education that teaches you how to deal with someone who in broad daylight has just stolen your cookies.

You know what would happen if this had been South Central Los Angeles. There would have very quickly been gunfire, helicopters coming in, CNN, you know. . . But in the end, I did what any red-blooded Englishman would do: I ignored it. And I stared at the newspaper, took a sip of coffee, tried to do a clue in the newspaper, couldn't do anything, and thought, what am I going to do?

In the end I thought, nothing for it, I'll just have to go for it, and I tried very hard not to notice the fact that the packet was already mysteriously opened. I took out a cookie for myself. I thought, that settled him. But it hadn't because a moment or two later he did it again. He took another cookie.

Having not mentioned it the first time, it was somehow even harder to raise the subject the second time around. "Excuse me, I couldn't help but notice . . ." I mean, it doesn't really work.

We went through the whole packet like this. When I say the whole packet, I mean there were only about eight cookies, but it felt like a lifetime. He took one, I took one, he took one, I took one. Finally, when we got to the end, he stood up and walked away.

Well, we exchanged meaningful looks, then he walked away, and I breathed a sigh of relief and sat back. A moment or two later the train was coming in, so I tossed back the rest of my coffee, stood up, picked up the newspaper, and underneath the newspaper were my cookies.

The thing I like particularly about this story is the sensation that somewhere in England there has been wandering around for the last quarter-century a perfectly ordinary guy who's had the same exact story, only he doesn't have the punch line.

(Excerpted from "The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time" by Douglas Adams)

Alone

2011-03-05T04:52:00.000-08:00

I'm sittin alone on a bench outside my hostel and it is on moments like these that I feel life, with all it's sorrows and happiness, can't get lonelier or more peaceful. There is no one to talk and no one for company. All I have right now are a bunch of pesky mosquitoes and an iPod.
I wanna just talk. Talk somemore. I haven't has a decent conversation in so long that I can't remember the last time I did. It's almost like except for my mother no one wants to really know what's up in my life! Ironically almost everyone on this campus asks me that when they see me. Life.

Shivani Saksena
sent from my iPod

excellent work-just sharing it

2011-02-12T13:37:00.000-08:00

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Battle of the emotions

2011-02-05T10:03:00.000-08:00

Emotions are powerful, that we all have heard. But to experience it the sheer strength of the emotion and realise its power is quite another. At least for me it has been.
The past few weeks I experienced jealousy and hatred and like each time that I experience the mix of these two, I stand in awe of it. One side of my brain shows me the rationality of all the literature that sugested that negativity has in it the power to overcome the strongest of person-Osho, Sri Aurobindo and the like. The other side pulls me to further explore the realms of this dark side and feel a new wave of power and its accompanying attitude.
The triggers of the situation will never see light on this portal(they stay locked in safer media) but the experience obviously has me using my head to word it out.
Women, history suggests, are women's worsr enemies. As I grow out of my utopian ideals and experience for myself situations where earlier I would scorn others for having reacted in a way, I am reacting thus. Pitiful. But life.

Any one worth her salt in marketing...see this!

2011-02-01T14:04:00.000-08:00

Logorama from Marc Altshuler - Human Music on Vimeo.

Rusty ol' me

2011-01-27T10:29:00.000-08:00

So yours truly has decided that life needs a facelift. I need loads of other things but one has to start somewhere. So I have restarted two previously integral parts of my life: physical fitness and public speaking.
The former is currently being pursued by using the well stocked gym that XL offers. I haven't had much time to devote to it or my self lately. Then a few events triggered a major need for revamp. Step in my resolve to go to the gym. On day1, I use the treadmill, I use the stepper, I do some floor exercises and rusty, flabby me gets all sweaty and exhausted! Sheer mortification overtakes me as I realise that I have indeed lost my agility and flexibility.
There is another side to this tale. The public speaking bit. I participated in a debate after 5long years. Oh boy am i rusty! But like they say, it never goes out of your system. Standing there with a small chit of my points, I felt like I was back home. I could feel I was rusty, I could feel I needed a brushing session but I was happy. I rediscovered my first love. One I had let slip in engineering.
Now I wish I can continue with both-both were sorely missed and desperately required.
Ah life!

My celestial constant

2011-01-20T09:19:00.000-08:00

Living in the hostel is an experience everyone should have. It's like a kiln one needed to finally go through before one's true strengths come forth. I can gas around on hostels for quite a bit-I hate most of it!

The inspiration behind this particular post is my realisation that I have little in common with my earlier life(read: pre-jamshedpur). It almost seems like a previous birth sometimes. Nothing is the same, not even me. or wait. I think it should be-most of all, me.
So the other night I was walking back from the mess and I looked up at the sky. I don't remember why I looked up, was it the moon, was it exasperation, was it a kink in my neck, was it a desire to knock at heaven's door, I don't remember. but I looked and I saw. In that moment of isolation, I saw my oldest companion-the only constellation I can always track and one I always look for-the Orion.
It must've been class 3 or 4when I first learnt of the Orion. since then, whenever I could I've always looked up to find it and it's a relief that it's still there! But that day it spoke back to me.
for most people there isn't much that objects communicate. I somehow perceive it differently. there are bonds one can share with every thing-it doesn't have to be a breathing, talking flesh and blood. and once you believe, you'd know what I am talking about.
I miss myself terribly on some days. on some days I am complacent about this change. my glimpse at the Orion that day just made dealing with complacency easier. It was almost as if it said to me that it'll always be there-a constant in this changing life. A constant companion that would travel with me where ever i went and one who'd never ever change. most of all when i did.
can't say that about anything else now, can I?

MAXI

2010-12-21T10:54:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling all soppy about MAXI tonight. I don't know why but all day today I was getting all sentimental about the nice bunch of people who i met thanks to Maxi.

Just in case you are wondering what MAXI is, it stands for MARKETING ASSOCIATION AT XLRI. I happen to be a junior executive member and mighty proud of it!

I was relating to my mother over lunch just how supportive each of my seniors had been and how I probably had never thanked them for it. Thanks guys! I know most of you won't ever see this, but thanks for standing by me during the nightmare called SIP and more.

It is also a matter of great personal pride for your's truly to be on Xl's website. Here it is. And another(my personal work!)

This is to MAXI. Of today. Of yesterday. Of tomorrow.

dedicated to term II

2010-12-13T10:52:00.001-08:00

this slightly tilted drawing is dedicated to the endless economic classes of term II that taught me as much economics as it made me sleep n draw :D

what if...

2010-12-01T00:38:00.000-08:00

so last night i was tired and not so tired. while i lay contemplating ways of putting myself to sleep, a thought crossed my mind. what if king kong could talk back?
for the last 17years king kong has borne every antic of mine. he knows every secret, every good thing, every evil thing i've thought n done, every crush i had, every time i nursed a broken heart and much much more. lately he's also a good pillow and a substitute for a nice warm hug.
as it happens, last night i wondered what king kong would say to me if he could talk back. would he admonish me for being like me? would he express his anger at being treated like pillow? would he be all nice and tell me what exactly was the cause of all those salty tears that he so diligently absorbed?
i don't know. somehow the more i think the worse options i come up with. and all bad things he could do-shout, scream, gossip and more. isn't it surprising that i can not think of one good thing a mute secret keeper would do?
the world's cynicism is hitting me after all. my best buddy is also a potential "wikileak". lame joke. sorry :P
oh btw the snap below is the first documented proof of king kong...year 1993...month unknown. somewhere between mar-aug

a song that struck a chord somewhere....

2010-11-28T05:45:00.000-08:00

genius me

2010-11-21T12:26:00.000-08:00

inspired by a week full of grax and good anda maggi at midnight-gossiping is good for health-it increases awareness, makes one more perceptive, provides good laughter and usually involves human bonding of various kinds.
my moments of true genius. m good!

all the single ladies(minus one) and the south indian heroes!

2010-11-20T07:11:00.001-08:00

all my life i've wanted to do a honest to goodness road trip. to be true, my fascination began with all the trashy american teen flicks and their ideas of coming to age. on November 20, 2010 i, shivani saksena, actually had a short but very interesting road trip.
second term@xl has been bucket loads of fun. after the depressing beginning and frustrating ending of term 1, term 2 has been rather nice to me(touch wood). this particular month of november will always remain special. first a beach vacation and then this. oh i love this november!
if i were to start at the starting, mr menon came up with this idea of a half a day trip to Dasam falls(40km outside ranchi-about 100 or so from XL) and all of readily agreed. for some reason, we decided to begin early(smart decision-the highway early morning is wow!). at 5:40am, we were all set to leave. mr menon with Kottana, Dexter with SN, Badal with SK and i was with KK. or should i say, i was with KK and Padmini? ;)
since i can't make this a really boring travelogue, i'm throwing in what my excitement was all about-Padmini is a very stately Royal Enfield Thunderbird!! i could've gushed about it, if anyone were really listening but then again, whatever.
KK and i were leading the pack coz we kept cruising averaging about 75-80kmph while the rest were almost crawling averaging 40kmph! the drive at 6 in the morning is an experience. with a heavy sweat shirt and hood covering all of my head except my face, i could still feel the chill. the wind really talks to you at that speed. the highway from jamshedpur to ranchi (NH 33)is a a good road except in patches where it is becomes unbearable but otherwise the two lane highway is a built for a good ride.
on my way to dasam falls my camera kept clicking...the fog covered mountains, endless fields of freshly harvested crops, a very beautiful sunrise, an idyllic temple built on the banks of the many rain fed rivers we crossed, yellow fields covered in hay and mustard blossoms, a tomato market, small villages on the edge of civilization yet untouched in their life, an ancient devi temple called Deori Devi, cliffs that rose high yet didn't intimidate and yes, whatever else caught my fancy. my only regret is that by the time i'd focus and click, we'd have moved further ahead and so many of my pictures are of mundane trees that only i know hide a beautiful sight.
with 3pit stops on our way there, we took a total of 2hours and a half. the last 15kms to dasam is off the highway and into the hinterlands of jharkhand. the road is well built but like i mentioned, the life there is still disconnected from urban development.
some 10 into our journey, i was bothered by the utter silence we were traveling in. i wasn't sure if it was really a comfortable silence or just lack of conversation on either side. when i finally muttered up the courage to ask KK if he'd like to talk on our way there, i got a very classy answer that i probably wouldn't forget for a long time. he said, "lady if you wanted to talk, u picked the wrong guy. i like my bike rides in silence."
silence suited me just fine. i got to sing to myself, pray a little, sort issues in my head and just be quiet. with padmini roaring like she does, i didn't need conversation. the world passing me by was a blur at moments when i'd just lose myself to the wind, the roar and peace. oxymoronic life, isn't it?
dasam falls were a real sight. fallin from 144feet high marble rocks, it looked quite an enchanting place. it is actually well maintained and given how some places are cluttered and dirty, this was quite the opposite. climbing down the stairs to the bottom of the falls, we made our camp and went about doing whatever it was one wished to do. i went as close as i could to the smaller falls that make dasam falls. the rocks were very slippry and losing one's footing is the easiest thing. dexter was the only one who joined me in fall exploratory mode while most went off rock climbing. it was only later that we joined them. i am not particularly fond of rock climbing coz it manages to very vocally prove to me how badly out of shape i am. but i persevered. with mr menon and dexter being good support however idiosyncratically.
after one slip, i realised i shouldn't push the bar too far for me and stayed back from further climbing. the guys though went all the way to the top of the falls. what a sight it must've made! i was happy enough sitting on the ledge of with my feet in the splashing water and just staring into space. i never realised how much i'd missed my thoughtless staring into space until i spent a good part of the morning doing just that today. most people here dnt know my moods. they especially don't know my silence. but i do. and i liked the thoughless moments. and to think of it, i wasn't on the ground, i wasn't in the air...i was sitting on a rock ledge under a waterfall in the middle of the jungles of jharkhand. wow!
the drive back was quite uneventful as such but the longest i've had. KK and i drove non stop back to college(one 5minute break doesn't count) and that means sitting on the bike in the same position continuously for a little less than two hours with nothing to do and a sun to hide from. if i look for a reason why i still loved it, i wouldn't have a clue. i just did. it could be doing the diva scarf and shades routine or it could be the exhaustion wearing off under the wind. i dnt know.
the trip has one extra special moment for me. it was when KK didn't see a pothole and padmini obviously jerked hard. my instant reaction when i drive is to talk to my car and make it up to her. KK did the exact same thing. touching.

ps: photos in next blog post...i still hv2load em!!

Bats and life

2010-11-14T04:00:00.000-08:00

i've been wondering for a long time what to write and even though i now have a laptop i am only away from when in class or during meals, i haven't done much better with blog posting. but something that happened just now has prompted an urgent post.
today is the third and final day of our fest Ensemble and since sn's brother was here for it, we finally coordinated our schedules enough to go out and have a meal together. the ladies decided the outing called for dress up and we cleaned up decently well(people were shocked enough to call it dolled up!). after a hearty meal full of cheese, good ham, laughs and topped with a good drive, we returned to our 10x10.
absentmindedly i unlock the door. sn and sk are behind me and all three are squabbling. i switch on the lights and wham! i see two bats flying across my room straight at me! i shrieked i think and jumped into sn's room and closed it shut. then we debated how they could've come and how we should get them out. finally sn and i ran down to find some help from the workers et al. thankfully we didn't have to go further than the hostel landing...there were three workers packing up for the day. we told them of my room and they got so excited at the prospect of catching a bat that all they way to my room, they were cracking jokes for us and giggling like excited little girls :|
watching them jumping and swinging broom and happily fighting the bats was an experience. i, the brave girl, was crouching at the end of the corridor behind a turn. sn was there too. sk was so brave she refused to step out of sn's room. we could see them making plans to catch the bats. one got hit by the broom but landed in the shelf above the tables. the other probably realised the battles a losing fight, so it flew out the room and straight across the corridor at sn and me. oh how i screamed! and when it landed just at the turn where we were crouching, i ran. i ran like crazy to other end of the corridor with sn close at my heels. all i can say is it must've been a funny sight for sure, but i couldn't have cared less!
bottom line...the workers had in their hands two bats and they happily walked off like pirates after a loot and a very scared me walked surreptitiously into my room. phew! no more bats to scare me. i hope.

Small Audi art2

2010-10-24T22:29:00.000-07:00

Small Audi art

2010-10-24T22:23:00.000-07:00

Turning a sphere inside out

2010-10-17T05:29:00.000-07:00

so a friend posted this link as his gtalk status n i was greatly impressed hence i share it below. the beauty of mathematics which sometimes dances in front of my eyes and at other times eludes me, is incomparable. a mathematician is an artist, a visionary and a tad bit self contained and often very boring. lol!
and truthfully this video has no bearing whatsoever on my life and its current updates ;)

Miss (my) Slumber

2010-10-11T12:17:00.000-07:00

so here at xl i've discovered a new side to me. yes cliche but true. let's just say i've discovered more sides to me than i knew before!
i just cant help it. it's definitely not planned, it's not intended, it's something i resist yet something i'm seen rather often indulging in. oh how i try to justify not just to myself but to all those who catch me in action that it wasnt meant to be. but to no avail. it happened. it happens. n i dnt see y it wont happen again.
yes, one rather (in)famous ability i've discovered, is sleeping in class!
but there is a pattern you see. when some patch of never ending theory comes up which I find no way of comprehending, my brain starts off with things i do. so mostly i try to doodle but when even that fails, my brain in the auto mode switches off. heard of battery savers?
so to help me better explain-read the brilliant piece of art below.
thnx xkcd.com for making my situation atleast humourous :D

weighty issues

2010-10-05T13:35:00.000-07:00

yes, as the title suggests this post is all about weight issues. who's? mine!
my brother had once very beautifully written about my battle with my weight, way back when orkut was the "in" thing and having meaningful testimonials was the ultimate need. he'd said, "she'd be perfect if only she could get herself motivated to do something about her biggest problem-her weight". it's funny and embarrassing to admit that it's still true.
a friend tonight very crisply showed me the root of the problem for me. her(very true) observation is that I can eat whenever and whatever I feel like irrespective of hunger! till a few moments after she said it, I could've counted eating as my best time pass and hobby-I love food!
I love all aspects of food! I love to cook, I love to shop for gourmet foods, I love to go shop for vegetables cause I can imagine having them for dinner soon, I can watch cookery shows, I love to experiment with food and I love food! when i qualified for xl and it was time for me to leave home, i went to a book store to buy myself a book-I shortlisted 3books out of which the one i finally picked is titled "The Virago Book of Eating". how much more can i say?
so tonight, sitting at bishuda(midnight food haven), while i gorged on french toast, my friend muddled up the courage to tell me the real reason why I am fat-cause I eat randomly-whenever and whatever. so touched as i was by the concern n the dawn(i keep forgeting, or keep making myself forget) of this knowledge, i sulked. a little. i closed the open box of cookies on my desk and decided to be better at it. then i started writing this entry and just writing about food has cheered me up!
so maybe i'm fat. ok, no maybe, i am fat. but atleast i'm happy!
ok, so sometimes happiness should also be derived from external things like two dress sizes smaller, and it must be time for me to try. again :)

So what is Marketing?

2010-10-01T22:36:00.000-07:00

On my way back

2010-09-23T12:17:00.001-07:00

This is on my way back to jamshedpur. I'm in the rajdhani and though
I'm surrounded by people I know aka my batchmates the journey will be
a long one I know. For some reason this route back is not long for
only me. There is no enthusiasm and gaeity that had accompanied me
when had travelled from XL to home
This transition from the first term to the second has been softened by
my time home but still fear lurks. For the first term it was fear of
the unknown and a transition. This time it's more like walking into
the lion's den knowing your sword and skill aren't the sharpest.
Life is funny and somehow when two worlds clash, u realise it the
best. Coming back home would have been so different I'd never
imagined. But sometimes like they say, change is the only constant.
So here's to me! To term II!

Shivani Saksena
sent from my iPod

New Life

2010-06-23T12:05:00.000-07:00

i have now completed a little over a week now here at my b-school and each day is something of a new chapter for me. i've seen so much in so little time that it's a wonder what more is left there...so maybe another day i'll elaborate.

legally blonde!

2010-05-26T10:41:00.000-07:00

i just saw Legally blonde tonight. and frankly i loved it! oh elle woods you played out a part of me there. i may not be pretty and i'm not blonde but for some reason i've battled first impressions too long and identifiable lost many. at the stage of life i'm at...graduating and seeing people fly away from my life for their masters and jobs, i so easily identified with her pursuit to keep her life in place and in ways alter her own. i'm off in a fortnight to a new city, a new school and ironically, like elle woods, to the east coast! oh i never imagined it'd fit so well to the night i needed reaffirmation that i mean something to someone somewhere.
today was just another draining fun day of college's last few days. i call draining because it's emotionally so, thanks to the downfall of the structure of a special friendship and in ways the end of the four best years of my young life. it was fun because i try to make it so...squeeze every drop of time and conversation i can from among the best people i've had in my life. oh i'm going to miss them! :'(
as i look ahead i feel fear. i always fear something to come when i wait for it to come. i fear of losing myself in that sweeping tide and i fear of losing people i hold dear. but this too shall pass! so elle woods taught me tonight...that the passion, conviction and self confidence are all the ingredients to a life!

Bheja Curry

2010-05-08T10:17:00.000-07:00

CAUTION:: IF YOU ARE A VEGETARIAN AND/OR OF DELICATE NATURE WHERE FOOD IS CONCERNED, PLEASE DO NOT READ FURTHER

ever so often i hear of something-curry, considering how much i love food. i can even say i've eaten most of those curries. Today shall go down in personal history as the day i had brain curry...for real.
let me admit that i had an initial mix of apprehension and excitement when papa ordered bheja curry at Anand's at CP. I'd only wanted to try his, now personally overrated, biryani. So after my eye check up, off we'd gone on our gastronomic hunt!
Enter a plate of bheja curry. At first glance it looks like egg curry...with only egg whites. then pa spoons around and i spot my first perfect piece of brain. i try really hard to keep the biryani i'd had, down. papa urges me to taste it. i break my roti, cover the segment, hold it down and feel it being soft and gooey. i bite into it and i squirm...urgh! i quickly reach for my plate of pudina onions and i gear up to fight this battle of the food. i take another bite, i react less violently. by the next one i'd found a trick to not react to having a brain for lunch...stuff onions in the mouth before chewing, makes it less squishy, gooey and repulsive.
so somehow i got through it. i never could've called myself a foodie if i'd not stood upto the challenge! i had a reputation to keep and keep the fire of exploration alive! but sadly the last bite spoiled it. none of us had realised that the last bite left in the platter for me, when turned over, would be that very perfect piece of a brain complete with it's grooves and hemispherical shape, that can turn any one's (or so i think) stomach over! oh god! i am only glad i didn't throw up!
so after having survived this experience and visibly struggling to not throw up, my very amused father tells me that that curry was a pathetic attempt at bheja curry. it's considered a delicacy and an art when cooked right...more like keema curry than egg curry! damn that cook!
papa did get worried that if such was my reaction to this piece of food, how i'd react to most sea food. yes, it has me worried too. and truthfully i'm most scared of how i'll swallow caviar...they're fish eggs for god's sakes! so much so for my dream of sipping champagne with caviar on the beach in the dimming light of sunset. sigh!

cadmean victory...or is it?

2010-04-09T23:17:00.000-07:00

if i were to start with describing my mood right now, i'd write a whole post on how it cannot be explained. it is a saturday afternoon and on wednesday my brother gets married. that is an emotion i'll not write on. it's pure happiness and anticipation. lurking underneath all this, is a dark one that has literally risen from the ashes of the past. as they all said, nothing can be hidden and nothing can be undone...i as always, get to live it.
oh the joys of youth; its abandon! it's hurtful how every action that i don't weigh properly always backfires on me. i aim for spontaneity and in the thrill of impending success, fire the gun on my face. oh it's killing!
like a compulsive gambler, i try each time. and like a compulsive gambler, i lose more than what i began with. but unlike the compulsive gambler i carry a grudge. for the only time in my life thus far, i carry a deep dislike bordering on hatred and i feel it may be reciprocated. but if that's the way to settle the dust on this issue and heal the thorn in my side, so be it. i just want this negativity out of me!

Moving on

2010-03-29T13:21:00.000-07:00

Lying in my iPod since oct30,2009. Seemed depressingly valid today,
especially now. Needs an edit for the current situation, but
hauntingly precise...

It's wonderful u can move on
Stuck in a time warp am I
An inevitable step lies ahead
Parting of ways breaking a tie.

Moments back this was how I wanted it
A new start free from your presence
When spoke your lips the same words
A void appeared craving your essence.

Twice bitten thrice shy u call me
A meekness behind the facade of strength
Stood by me u have, even though only in my dreams
Now u talk of flying away a great length

Shivani Saksena
sent from my iPod

Sitting on the ledge

2010-03-25T13:19:00.001-07:00

It's 1am on a quiet dark night. I'm sitting on the ledge of a small
balcony because I've always to and because tonight I can and because
it's too hot inside and I am not sleepy. The ledge is wide enough to
nicely sit on, long enough to stretch out on and low enough to tempt
me to try n jump down. The last is not quite an option, it would freak
too many people out! So m happy sitting on a cool night, rest my legs,
listen to music and besides seeing the darkness n the moonlight, m
happy while I type this out on my touch.
My life is in a funny phase these past few months. There've been
moments I want respite and moments I crave any form of activity.
There's been too little and too much of excitement. And in one moment
of unthinking stupor and folly I've gone over board n killed my
carefully built reputation. College now scares me. My interviews lined
up have fallen in my trap of complacency. I'm apparently too busy to
be actively involved in any sphere: college, bhai's wedding or even my
own life! It's frustrating what's going on and the more time I get to
think over it, the worse I make it for myself.
I was hoping to cool down my anxiety in the moonlight but looks like
it'll have to be done another day. M at a moment that I clearly want a
rewind button or an assurance. But it's just me, the hidden moon, a
distant lamp post, an empty house, long trees, loads of time for
regret and a folly.
I've been missing the carefree me, even though my regret stems from
it. This is one event of my life no1 beyond college is privy to and I
want to keep it that way. I need a hug and I need one bad. Since m not
getting it any time soon, I sit here wondering. Wondering a whole lot
why's...

Shivani Saksena
sent from my iPod

all over again...

2010-03-16T10:47:00.000-07:00

i hate heartbreaks, i hate the fall
just today the sky was pretty
now it's grim
i hate this part, i hate this end
why i let myself fail again and again
i don't understand!
optimism always hurts me
it takes me up on my bubble of imagination
just to crash by the needle of reality
and hit the ground of despair!

The rear view mirror

2010-03-12T05:19:00.000-08:00

Driving around the city is an experience that calls for a study. Compared to the satellite towns of NCR that I’ve driven in, Delhi is still much better. I remember driving in Ghaziabad once and while I was there I wasn’t able to comprehend who was crazier...me, for following my driving rules, or the local bunch for being practioners of the chaos theory! It was a freaky road with a bullock cart, bicycles, a Mercedes Benz, a handful of MUVs and a rickety bunch of tempos and buses, all driving and shouting and honking on that two lane road!

What today I want to write on is completely different. It’s about that momentary bond you forge with your fellow drivers while the engine is idling at yet another red light. Someone will be fixing their hair, someone their fag, another will look like boredom were his middle name and another like the wait will kill her. Those with family or co-passengers aren’t making it here because they have a world moving with them on wheels, all I am talking of, are the ones who’re driving alone. At each halt in a traffic crossing and/or a jam, I look around at people. I look at people to figure out what’s driving them and to where. Often a pretty face may catch my eye or a sharp glint of arrogance and challenge in the eye of the guy who I’m standing ahead of; a lecherous look of open interest in my affairs or one of horrified amusement when they catch me singing with the radio!

Oh I do all this when I drive to and from important places and exams because only that’s when I get the car all to myself. Driving alone can be distracting...it requires too much focus for me to do so in absolute silence. That’s where my music comes in! I switch radio channels, I play music from my iPod or I just sing to myself, but I sing. It gives the whole journey a rhythm, a beat, a life! I sing, I groove, I head bang...I basically imagine I’m in NFS and this is my background score!

Talking of rear view mirrors and co-drivers, the instant connection is quite a mood uplifting instrument. Checking the line of cars in the mirror, invariable I zero in on one car and that becomes my partner for the way. It’s like picking a friend who one drives along with and keeps up with! It pushes you if you fall far behind, urges you to slow down if they fall far behind. It’s something I do, I don’t know if people in general do this. I also mentioned a challenge above...that usually happens with jerks of guys who believe a female driver better, faster and ahead of them is a blob on their virility. So they rev up their cars, scowl at you or make explicit expressions, do their best to overtake you and feel some form of exhilaration when they do! More often than not, I let them be. Childish antics don’t require attention, but on days that I’m on the edge myself, they are up for a challenge I’m not willing to lose!

So this post is dedicated to all the “friends” I made in my rear view mirror and all those I’ll make!

Cartoons in new light

2010-02-26T22:30:00.000-08:00

Easy, free time is good for the mind. It's simply bliss but 3 months of it can lead to a rusty attitude and a lazy body! yawn!! ;)

Unlike most people I have just discovered youtube thanks to my better bandwidth. So i'm spending my days watching old episodes of Popeye, Little lulu and all looney tunes and it's good fun.

The one thing that struck me over and over again is how sexuality is promoted through these cartoons. A simple case in point with say, droopy&dripple, a voluptuous woman walks by with a skimpy dress and a bare leg, has a husky voice and smoky eyes and the father-son duo gets their brain rattled and eyes popping! How often have we seen this scene repeated in various cartoons and over the ages? As a kid i'd laugh over it and absorb it as a typical male reaction to a stereotypical female mould! Good lord!
it's very disturbing now that i see such stuff and realise the potential harm it can do. as with Johnny Bravo...the guy was a labelled lecher! i miss the innocence in those cartoons and i also realise that it was innocence in me not to have realised such perspectives to lust earlier. i grew up and my perception of the actions of those characters changed!
Each animation i see, i note the details, i always have. I used to marvel at how grown people could so very easily understand a child's mind and make them laugh, learn and connect to objects that do not exist. But now i see how it works. It is an adult mind at work in a child's playroom...we all remember what we liked. it's just that if i now want my chair to dance with me, it wouldn't be on a "here we go round the mulberry bush" but maybe a "jamaican farewell". so if i were to make a kid imagine, i'll change the music! and we still dance...i, in my big grown up world of deadlines, projects and loud people and the little kid in her world of stars, cars and bliss!

creation in my kitchen

2010-02-17T00:08:00.000-08:00

cooking is parallel to creating. it provides an outlet to desires, energies and the euphoria of having created. whenever i have the urge to eat something exotic and the time to wait and devote in its creation, i prefer making it. the Internet is a veritable guide in my pursuits...multiple recipes of the same dish, regional variations of the same dish and the conscience balming variant of low fat!
to celebrate my birthday, i decided I'd have enough of cakes so I'll make ice cream. the newspaper yesterday was in sync...it gave me a super easy recipe of "low fat" banana Popsicles! since my maid, who has a wild mind of her own, decided to clean the kitchen while i was cooking, she promptly treated my paper cutting as trash and threw it out in the garbage before i realised it was missing. this post is my way of saving that recipe, before i forget, and putting up my happiness at its success.
ingredients
1/2, 1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
a pinch of salt
2 cups milk
2 tablespoons vanilla essence
2 diced, big bananas
method
1. in a saucepan mix the the sugar, starch and salt
2. pour in the milk and while continually stirring, bring to a boil
3. simmer, add vanilla and stir. remove from stove
4. in a blender put the bananas and pour half the pudding
5. blend well
6. pour the banana mixture back into the saucepan with the remaining pudding and stir to get a uniform consistency
7. pour into Popsicle mould and place a stick in the middle(couldn't find a stick, i used toothpicks)
8. freeze till set(i left it overnight...my freezer's a wimp)

and voila! homemade Popsicles ready! now even though m not much of a banana fan, less of banana flavoured ice cream, i still enjoyed it. i now plan to try this out with all the fruit variations as and when they come in...strawberry for sure, raspberry for the heck of it, litchis for the taste and maybe even black currants! hahaha...i tried making a pomegranate smoothies once at home, and though it was worse than my papaya smoothie, it looked far better. so if anyone tries out any new dish, try not to go by it's looks!
bon apetit!

struggling at 11

2010-02-05T09:35:00.000-08:00

sitting in front of a monitor
looking for the right words
i sit and type and erase what i type
and never know what i really mean.
i want it so much that i hold on too tight
and slipping out of my fingers i see
words have never failed as much as today
while complete sentences i struggle to write.
if i wouldn't know what my life has been
how would anyone else help
but structure i hunt at the 11th hour
and illogical broken dreams is all i find.
the sand clock mocks me with its grains
also with the curves i never gained
trembling fingers and nervous hearts
5essays and an important deadline.

Does the shoe fit?

2010-02-01T05:55:00.000-08:00

Happy day, sad day, a day of revelations

Open minds, closed hearts, no place for aberrations.

A wispy hi, a hearty hug, some beaming adoration

A covert glance, an innuendo, a pretty irritation.

Of lefts and rights and divided loyalties

Of dreams and illusions and crashing realities.

Standing there in the pool, splashing all around

Coming back, waist high, just as before I pound.

my big bold cap

2010-01-20T10:02:00.000-08:00

I've been haunting khan market and south ex a wee bit too much lately...4days in a row is a record for me! ambling about, hunting down a tailor, looking for kids' stuff and just checking out stores, it was fun in ways. Also since both are virtually entirely on sale, it's quite a sight and absolutely, completely, utterly irresistible!

The reason I haven't emptied my piggy bank yet is that I carry no cash or cards! Precautions are necessary when in such places and even if i don't buy stuff, I'll end up gorging on something sinfully delicious at khan market or burning hot at south ex. And truthfully neither's good for me.

So on my last but one day out at south ex, dad, mum and i were moving in and out of stores, crossing and recrossing the subway and basically driving each other nuts. And then i saw it...it drew me like a fly to the flame and i happily went. I'd finally found myself a big bold Caribbean knit cap! i didn't even try it on..I knew I wanted it and I just bought it! Thank god Benetton was on sale!

Now this cap of mine is getting mixed reviews. Considering how I've barely stepped out of my house without it, almost everyone who's opinion matters has seen it. It's been called a steal, adorably colourful, bright and bold, plain weird, a chef's hat or simply been dumbly stared at.

Google informs me it's called a Jamaican tam but all

my life I've known it as the Bob Marley cap...and so even as I've searched for just the right one for me and finally found one, i can't get over gushing about it!

For those who are still wondering what it looks like, here's a variant though mine is red, yellow and green(no black) and i looove it!

Chronicles of the U-Special

2010-01-07T10:37:00.001-08:00

The Delhi University provided DCE with one thing similar to the rest of the university...a university special bus! Then DCE became DTU but thanks to the efforts of its die hard fans, it survived! It’s been 3years, this January that I’ve been travelling in that fixed 4th row window seat in that rickety DTC bus that the depot does us a favour by allotting. This January I am not in it and as it is I have just a semester left, so I decided my U-special deserved a mention in my life.Oh the convenience of it all, that it didn't allow the hostel to settle in my system. I remember me craving for teleporting powers just so I could spend all night in my hostel, sleep with my friends and wake up at home with the uspl always there to take me to college. Alas! science fiction never became my reality and I gave up(as much as hostel authorities with me) on the hostel and in ways I’ve never regretted it. I met more people in the u special than I would've otherwise, being the outsider that I was back in 2nd sem. if nothing else, it forced me to endure random people's company and in return forge wonderful friendships with not just classmates but batch mates across branches. Shy, reserved, dumb, ostentatious, bold...I met each kind and life made a wonderful routine! As blissful as it sounds, these rides through the better part of the route traversed the city forests of ridge and I’ve lost count of how many times we've had a prayer on our lips just so that the bus wouldn't break down! Oh but it did! So dramatically and like such an over drawn tragedy scene! As I remember our misadventures, I list them here:

Scene I: a much-in-need-of-retirement bus is allotted and even before boarding, it refuses to start. Somehow it coughs, spews some smoke and relents. We start crawling towards college. We stop at the first stop, it takes time to restart. We reach our first flyover; it feels like someone with a heart condition's chugging up some mountain and failing miserably...our bunch of qualified mechanical engineers just gaze all lost. 2nd stop it dies for good! By now it's almost 8:40 and we're miles away!

Scene II: another season, another time the bus, this time loaded to full capacity, decided we were much too heavy for her delicate frame. I can bet we never tipped a 30kmph that day but she pulled along just fine, till we came to our 5th flyover and guess what the driver did...asked us to get off and see him at the top of the flyover. So there we were, some 50-80odd kids walking up a flyover and then scrambling for seats just when the driver took off at full speed! It had been decided that we'd try not to slow down and never to stop! Sadly we had at a crossing and without saying a word we all knew this would be as far as we'd get that day!

Scene III: in other misadventures, the bus broke down once in the midst of the jungle on a winter morning! That was when Salony coined our trip as "jungle main no-mangal" or something. that would also be the day when I realised for well and good, that "big" boys at dce will never take responsibility...they happily sauntered off, hitchhiking with strangers, leaving behind a bunch of scared, hysterical, angry and plain lost people behind to wait it out for a replacement bus with the oh-so-weird driver and conductor!

Scene IV: let me see...hmm. Oh yes! We had a bus breathe its last next to a big huge slum and hence our abandonment! Also once we travelled all the way with the engine throwing out black smoke and even threatening to burst into flames! I remember bikers turning around to check if it were really a moving bus on fire.

Scene V: one fine summer morning, in the midst of our semester exams (or mid, I don’t remember) we travel happily studying. Since it was an exam day, only those who had a paper at 10 were travelling in it. By now the dear never-to-be-sent-to-retirement bus is familiar and no one pays heed to its groaning and grunting. I call it a sheer attempt at attention seeking, but the bus managed an unimaginable feat...the rear axle broke and popped out!! And bang in the middle of the jungle! Oh the panic! How will get there? What of our exam? Oh this and oh that...and all this from the boy-folk. No offence, but I can't call that behaviour man-worthy! So then groups formed and a taxi was hailed to get us to the metro...6people stuffed into one cab and going zigzag like a pot-boiler he got us there after happily fleecing us. One of the guys, who'd declared himself our leader, proudly proclaimed, "Main baniya hoon, mujhe paise bachane aate hain!". Poor him, it took us a minute to prove how badly we'd been fleeced! All I can say is I gave my exam somehow!

It’s not like I have no sweet memories. I have so many I can't start to put them down here. Early in the 2nd, 3rd semester days Salony and I would sit and laugh all the way. It wasn't like any of us had some great sense of humour; it was more her thirst for gossip, my inadvertent supply mixed with her unique drama-queen style and my cynicism. Oh what fun! But then she stopped coming and I, around 5th semester on, found a smart Monday morning company...aka swayam. Monday morning fun only but our male bashing sessions were hilarious and heart-ache tales so similar! It was great having those intelligent conversations that didn't make me feel too dorky or too romantic or too cynical, depending on my mood, and was even better learning from her!

Not to forget, there was the "chi-chi" gang. Mayank and Prannay christened three irritating, loud, ill-mannered females, a year junior to us as the CHI CHI gang. the head chi chi was a migraine inducing female who had too shrill a tone and their conversation wasn't even ever fun, far from interesting! The conductor once had asked them to shut up, he'd had enough!

Coming to the last 2-3 semesters, it's noteworthy how on most days, I’d end up being the only female aboard. Given how this was nothing more than a passing observation of my own, I’d settled very comfortably in the entire atmosphere. I knew I had friends here...Mayank, Prannay and Anoop. Silence was comfortable, debates a lot of fun (I’d always be quiet), EPL almost a religion and taking my, Anoop's or absolutely anybody's case, Mayank and Prannay's best time pass. But I loved it all!

Now as college comes to an end, my daily dose of music, score updates, match analysis, newspaper reading and gossip will not come out of the same 1hour early in the morning. As for what's passed, I wouldn't have had it any other way! Look what I’ve had...

play time!

2010-01-07T08:48:00.000-08:00

Pac-Man made by Neave Games

musical all nighter

2009-10-18T14:05:00.000-07:00

just writing what is going on in my head and life is sometimes the best catharsis i can get. the pure pleasure of stringing words together, writing a tale, making a rhyme or just plain cribbing is addictive...and that is one thing i was always taught: how to avoid addiction and fight, but i wish i could write something good someday! hah! so here i am...having decided to not to sleep, now that it's 2:40am and my alarm poised to ring at 4:15! diwali culminates tomorrow on dooj and bhai flies back at 7am. considering i have to be bathed, dressed and ready for the dooj rituals at unearthly hours(at least for me) i have all the right to crib right now. start with my music, i can blab on so many stuff right now that i am wondering where to start. the music streaming in through my headphones, the elusive post grad prep or this whole magical weekend? i think i'llcoz that is what i have most different from other people. my choice of instruments have been called most memorably "arcane". i can't help but smile when i look at them that way. i have tried to test for myself my tastes by combining heavy metal, rock, pop, classical and 'my' kind and even with my eyes closed and the music on a randomiser i still loved my stuff. a symphony on the santoor, a strumming guitar, a whistling flute and rhytmic percussion...give me Rahul Sharma, Mark Knoffler, Zakhir Hussain, Richard Clayderman, Robert miles and all and i can happily lose myself to the music! there is a very big cool factor associated with rock music and i would be lyin if i didn't admit i tried liking it, but baring a few bands and a track here and there, it never appealed to me as a genre i'd passionately follow. unless i'm prepared for ear shattering, head banging, migraine inducing cacophony, metal to me is painful. more often than not, i listen to those tracks for what they symbolise and what they say. m a lyrics freak for the most the unusual songs and could completely ignore all the allusions and innuendos in John Mayers and darren hayes! such is music to me. it's ironical to think i'm a trained violinist and singer and i've done my fair share of stage singing and the only time i took stage at college, i had people tryin very hard not to snicker and hence be rude to me on my face! what was i thinking by singing mltr randomly? but then again i wasn't thinking... my alarm has finally started ringing so i 'wake' up while it's still dark outside...i wake up while m still awake and i wake up with mark knoffler taking me down the Irish countryside.

just one bite...

2009-09-17T22:22:00.000-07:00

i sit here writing this stuff while my classmates at dce are probably struggling to make sense of the last mid-semester paper currently going on. i am not appearing for any this time, hence the luxury of writing this! and i owe this situation to a mosquito. darn her!
it's been 11days since the day i fell ill with high grade fever and in those 11days i have seen myself suffer through maddening bouts of sickness, a stay in the hospital, innumerable needle pricks and meeting my entire delhi based family. quite an eventful series of events which i never wish are repeated, ever again. i have had enough of hospital beds, thank you.
it all started on sunday last while dad n i were happily roaming about cp and before i knew what was wrong i was shivering! back home i tried to quietly go to sleep but with ma not around, my dad wasn't quite sure how to handle a burning girl :P somehow we both pulled through the night and when ma finally came home, began the fever ritual and i slept like i'd never slept before! our erratic cycle pulled up long enough till wednesday when i was in a state ready to kick any and everything because not only was i frustrated at my sickness, i was bored to death! but boredom does stuff to your head, or so my dad now believes. my "bestest" nurse, my dad, says i bored him with tales of how i had ogres sitting on my head beating drums and the three bears playing around in my tummy...he never could stand any of my fantasy shit; a delirious fantasy land was more than he could partake!
so one fine morning it seems my body had had enough and i managed to do a very classy swooning act. alas! i was not in a ball with fancy clothes and handsome men, just me in my pyjamas and my aghast parents! having scared the daylights out of them at night, come morning i was promptly taken to the hospital and i must've been one hell of a sight coz all i remember is sleeping on my way there and then waking up in 'my' room with a drip stuck into my wrist. yeah i also remember shouting when that long needle was poked in, but that's it! i slept after that and slept some more.
now i hold myself patly responsible for my visit to the hospital coz i'd always had a desire to be admitted in the hospital and have peoole visit me! i did manage it, but i regret being so stupid and wishing for it to happen; but a part of me is also glad i learnt my lesson and got my hospital trip. stupid me.
so well i got everyone in delhi to actually visit me. my room always had someone or the other dropping by to check on the little baby and also bring in stuff which i had no desire to taste! but the biggest surprise was bhai walking in! he came in all the way from mumbai coz i was in the hospital and once he was there, nothing was the same. he made sure i had "good" food, read kathi rolls, and a good time of my stay....he got me to actually use the tv in my room and even let me check my mails there itself! bhai u rule!!
oh did i mention all the blood samples i gave? my right arm was literally punctured! i counted about 12 pricks in all in my elbow, my wrist and my back-of-the palm. when my drip was removed, my docs were more than happy not having to struggle to find an unpunctured vein! so they happily attacked my left arm too. ouch!
so now that i look back at this whole episode, i wonder how many times had i brushed off a mosquito as nothing but a nuisance and now i had to suffer through a whole bout of dengue thanks to that one fateful bite?
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs117/en/

all time fav....

2009-08-22T03:59:00.000-07:00

troubled by failings

2009-07-21T11:53:00.000-07:00

today(it's post midnight) is the mega hyped solar eclipse of the century. there has been enough talk all over our news-deprived news channels about what it will supposedly mean for all of us. but that's not what is worrying me enough to rouse me out of bed n typing here. what triggered my brain into over-drive was my hand-made tapestry of ganesh ji in my room. the year was very nicely also embroidered into the setting n as i just noticed, it's 10 years old! man was i a creative kid :P

what i wonder aloud here is this: is god vengeful? this is something's that's been bothering me for quite a while. when we listen/read to any scripture be it the Gita or the Bible, there are obvious similiarities that arise. am not doing a comparative study here, but just wish to point out the 'good way' to lead life. there are pre-conceived notions of how life's to be led, how we are to pray and how we are to pay for our sins. and lest we forget, they are very subtely repeated over and over again. it's not that i'm sitting here challenging what is a way for life for all, including me, just wondering why God's potrayed as being too busy to be watching over us directly? why is God is so unbending that there is only a certain way to get his attention? it's not like i want some special powers from him that i'd have to prove to be worthy of it. then maybe i'd consider all this effort!

resonating in my head right now is the satyanarayan katha. i've always been fascinated by it and there was a time when i could recite it with my mother. not that it's been ages, just i grew up and life changed. till a few years back i couldn't wait for ma to call me to recite it with her n then i'd get the kasar! yum! so now that i was thinking of God being potrayed as being vengeful, it's not suprising that i'd shuffle back to it. there is a story of a man who wished for a child and promises to fast on the birth. when the couple was blessed with a bonny baby girl he promises to fast when she marries. on her marriage he forgets. a few years later, the girl learns of the fast and for some reason she is unable to complete it. that is when God decides enough is enough, He punishes the family until the fast is complete.
now analyse the story as to what are we supposed to learn. there are a few lessons i can pick up though can't decide which to pick as final. first is the moral lesson that if we make a promise, we should keep it. simple trust n trade. second lesson is that God keeps track of our actions and loses both patience and can be very vengeful! so is He really not as forgiving as He's made out to be? and frankly it's not only hindu mytholgy, every religion has it and none is lacking in such tales.

the latter observation of the Almighty's personality is rather troubling to me personally. why do we make the Omnipotent, Omnipresent and Omniscient all so human? why should the one giving us a drive have his failings?

google threw this at me when i googled vengence god:
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2005/204_Gods_Wrath_Vengeance_Is_Mine_I_Will_Repay_Says_the_Lord/

scroll down to para 2 onwards...not close to what i was trying to imply, but then a minister wouldn't tell the faithful to doubt.

Saying goodbye...

2009-06-30T02:04:00.000-07:00

This is to write what I'd need to say. On Sunday, the most dreadful news came. Of all the people that I had come to love, the few teachers who moulded me into who I am, I lost one of the best. Mrs Flavia D'Souza, or Fundy and she was popularly known, passed away on Saturday. Surprise, disbelief, numbness and a little shock were my first reactions. It was then and there that I decided that the least I could do for her was to be present at her funeral and pay my respects. The afternoon passed trying to find someone who would accompany me for I wasn't sure that I had enough composure to go alone. For Reasons varying, most declined. Finally I found one.

That very evening after I parked my car, it started to rain. Rain was something that had been eluding us for weeks now and all I could think of was how it turned out to be a befitting farewell to a teacher always with a smile, a word of advice and an infectious enthusiasm . It turned out, the entire programme had been advanced. By the time we got there everyone, the family and the school faculty, were on their way out. I did not expect my teachers to recognise me, but most of them did, and did with a wistful eye and even a few hugs. To stand at the foot of the grave of one of your favourite teachers, is not the easiest thing in the world. To stand at the foot of the grave of your teacher and not know what to say it even harder. As Charlie Chaplin put it, I love the rain because no one can see me crying. It was ironical for me to be speechless in front of the teacher who most often trained me on how to speak.

Mrs D'Souza was the youngest of four sisters and a brother. She is survived by her little daughter and her husband who most of us knew through her stories as sonu and uncle. She was born and brought up here in Delhi, went to school to Carmel convent and further to the college of Jesus and Mary. Her stories, her antics and the peculiarity of being the quintessential English teacher somehow became her identity over the generations.

I could never see her conform to anything even remotely resembling the almost boring demeanour of the rest of the teachers. Everyone knew that very few got along with her, sometimes irritating, childlike behaviour. She could be deadly serious, most miserly with marks, rarely angry but more often than not have an air about her that you could not help but be affected by the energy in it. I am yet to see another person who could evoke such emotions in so many people at the same time. I am also yet to see a teacher who could give marks ranging from 0.15 to 8.6 and yet claim that her mathematics was weak! Most don't even try to break up the marks into quarters.

Almost all of us have at least once seen ma'am racing down the road, flailing her arms about and shouting, " let me through, I am late!". It's not every day, only it was for us, to see your teacher racing about just so she wouldn't lose a leave of because she was late and then most properly settled her hair, fix her dress, calm her nerves and go to the staffroom. Another of the peculiarities. Another of the reasons most found her weird.

She had a way about her that I cannot express. She not only went about completing the syllabus but often indulged in discussing things that happened around us. I still remember the one discussion she had with us way back in class eight. It was on surrogate motherhood. Young teenagers have an awkwardness that can only be felt. Topics like these are heard with every eye avoiding the other. She still went on and since she barely got a response from any of us, she gave us her's. Oh we all discussed it among our little groups but we just couldn't say it aloud. Maybe that was the first time I felt the urge to say what I feel without worrying about how others would judge me. From then on I tried to express my opinion where it would be heard and haven't looked back much since.

Talking of English teachers, I can safely say that I have had many over the past two decades. I've had a full-time one at home and some brilliant ones at school. Even though they have taught the same things how they did it was always different. For Fundy it has got to be her grammar and interpretation. Working on my diction or strengthening my arguments, she would always have the patience to not go about always correcting me but finding the way to just alter me enough. And how can I forget, when things got too serious, she'd just go and say,"Angrejan aisa hi hai bachha! kya karen?!".

On Sunday, when we were leaving I met an old friend who was just coming. He called out and when I saw him all I could think of was how she had affected us. All I could think of was S-H-U-G-A-R. I spoke what I had to, I told him where he had to go but I could say no more. I didn't feel up to it and I said as much. The rain just about concealed it all.

On Sunday Mrs Flavia D'Souza was laid to rest above her mother in the family graveyard in the presence of her family, colleagues , students and friends. May her soul rest in peace.

In the name of the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit, Amen!

three guys, a girl and a beautiful trip

2009-06-12T05:52:00.000-07:00

this is to document my bangalore-kolar trip, starting on the 7th of june and ending this morning, on 12th of june.

day 1: june 7

early start at 4:30am just so i could make it to the airport on time by 6. we board our hopping flight to blr and after a bumpy flight we land safe at BIAL to see for ourself what's all the hoopulla about the new airport. it's afncy, it's clean n rather small :P

our next mode of transport was a volvo bus to the city and i must say the drive was pretty! we drove around, i'm assuming, the old part of the city which frankly was a bit of a let down considering i was expecting the silicon city to be swankier and smooth. this place was cramped, old and all in kannad! churches, convents and cemetries lined the road and when they thinned, the army took over. the houses were typically sufferring from a bad english hangover and the roads couldn't be wide enough to accommodate two of these high capacity buses! this is bangalore?!

finally we reached our destination by 1 and had for lunch the most unique paranthas...kannad style with sambhar! our tryst with the sambhar was only just beginning, as we were to discover much later. we were driven down to kolar, some 90 km away in what seemed to be a journey meant to tantalise sleep! exhaustion of the past week and the day was fast catching up but the bumpy road and lack of leg room kept us in between sleep and awareness.

kolar turned out to be the msot unexpected place...a protected defence area with luxury rooms! where we'd expected hot southern summer, we found cool coastal monsoon winds. where we'd expected run down basic student accommodation, we got pretty rooms! where i'd expected some confusion and awkwardness at being the only female around, i found receptive and supportive scientists who were more than glad to have a girl around and gave me my own room!

once we got down to business we kept our eyes and ears open wide to the incoming competition and possible glitches in our PoA. not to late to realise we'd found one...our final ppt got promptly left behind in delhi in one of the many pen drives we'd used all year round and considered unncessary for this trip! we didn't have a ppt! which meant we cursed, we shouted we cried and stay up the night! registration and briefing was where i first laid eyes on those who'd come this far like us and those who were judging us equally critically. also watching them was a girl. and like always i found 2 taller than i :(

the night was full of palpable friction and tension and frustration was just setting in. working with guys till late at night was a new experience and something i was sure i'd pull despite all my apprehensions and i must mention the guys made it much easier on me by treating me like a guy most of the time(i'm more comfortable that way) and like a girl when it was most necessary.

love isolates

2009-04-23T00:47:00.000-07:00

i've been wondering hard and long. people often refer to it as pms and mood swings, but it's highly rewarding considering the revelations i make! and lately i've been thinking of the highly over rated phenomena called love. i'm not overtly cynical and i'm not calling grapes sour(as many often attribute it to) but all i'm saying is that the first flush of spring time love often makes people cocooned. all my friends who're in orkut's misnomed terminology are "committed" explain this as love being so satisfying that you need nothing more.

as the well known song from 'dil apna aur preet parayi' goes:

mubarake tumhe ki tum
kisi ke noor ho gaye
kisi ke itne paas ho
ki sabse door ho gaye

the last few lines are what are i'm refering to. so obviously i'm not the only one to notice that it happens!

now as to what triggered is line of thought, was that i've been missing many of my friends. not in the physical absence way, but emotional way. the connect's been missing and often in the most blatan t way. maybe it's jealousy. or maybe it's convention but why is it that ur social life though it's on a high when u're with someone, also depends competely around taht person's schedule? i can only imagine it be some extreme form of possessiveness on the part of the lover, but don't they miss some "me" time?

i still wonder. maybe coz i'm the odd numbered one in parties and sitting alone in the canteen waiting for my friends' gf/bf's classes to begin! good lord!

ps: i still love my friends and i hold their 'loves' dear for all the (apparent)good they've done to them. but i miss my friends!

Pepper spray

2009-04-04T05:44:00.000-07:00

all and sundry claim delhi to be unsafe for women. all and sundry keep coming up with protection(read self defense) measures so back in time that one feels exposed in a sleeve-less shirt. the best option i liked was a pepper spray, not that i've tried one, but an option i knew i'd prefer after my taekwondo. so just this afternoon when i was delegated the job to look for one for a family member, i happily walked off to the market to get it. after all i wasn't looking for ammunition!

shop1: spencer's

me: i need pepper spray.

attendant: this was ma'am.

we walk to the condiments' aisle

attendant: ma'am, your pepper.

i stare blankly

attendant: black pepper, powdered and balls(he said balls!)

me: i need pepper SPRAY

he goes to call his senior

senior: ma'am how do u use pepper spray?

me: for self defense

senior: huh?!

gapes at me...i walk off

shop2: chemist next door

me: i need pepper spray

chemist: kiriyane ki dukan aage hai

no comments

shop3: chemist no2

me: i need pepper spray

clerk: cosmetics ki dukan aage hai

me: it's not a cosmetic

clerk: phir hamare pass nahi hai

shop4: cosmetics shop

me: i need pepper spray

he gapes and gapes and gapes uncomprehendingly. i walk on

shop5: chemist no3

me: i need pepper spray

clerk: cosmetics hum nahi rakhte

me: it's not a cosmetic

clerk: to kiriyana wale ke pass hoga

me: it's not edible

clerk: is it medicated? or theurapetic?

me: it's to immobilise jerks and for self defense.

by now my temper is high, patience low and sarcasm at it's peak

clerk: try archies' gallery

shop6: departmental store

me: i need pepper spray

dumb girl: ma'am party spray archies ya hallmark pe hoga

me: i need pepper spray

dumb girl: ma'am woh kya hota hai?

me: it's for self defense and protection

dumb girl: ma'am chemist pe pooch leejiye

shop7: chemist no4

me: i need pepper spray

attendant(to his collegues): arre koi pepper spray kharidne aaya hai!! kahan gayi woh?

people seem happy n scurry about to look for it.

attendant(suspiciously): ma'am 400-500 rupiye ki hai, aapko lena hai?

me: nahi khelna hai. obviously lena hai!!

attendant: ma'am 399 ka hai!

me: arre wah! ek rupiya kam?

they pack it, i leave.

and i heave a sigh of relief! i finally found 1 bottle of pepper spray. and considering i was looking in gulmohar park, hauz khas and kailash colony and people there are supposed to be informed. talk of women's emancipation!

space is a luxury...

2009-02-22T05:49:00.000-08:00

weekends my 'social' life hits the roof. i don't know how fast it passes and thanks to the compact size of delhi, like every other day, i spend bulk time commuting. now watching life go by as it were, something came to my notice...for an average middle class fellow life is certainly a funny joke.
picture this: a young gun(no gender prejudice) starts off at a decent salary. the best home would be a small comfy li'l pad(were he/she rich, they'd have a huge empty place and hence my point of it being useless all the while costing too much to maintain). they probably drive a two wheeler(not in delhi, it's dangerous) and when they marry, they share it well enough. then comes parenthood...all the hoobabloo with it. more money, more time and loads more space!! fine slowly and surely they cope. they rise in their careers, they make more money and get lesser time to spend with their kids. but they manage to pull off good schools, better cars and better homes. children grow up all the while still wanting more(thankless bunch :P). then our protagnist starts getting old, their salaries are good, cars are among the best and a lovely house in a good place...only trouble is there is no one to share it with! the kids are gone to make their own nest!
the situation is true for so many. if we'd look we'd find it on every red light we stop at. a family of four on a two wheeler and an elderly couple in a car. i see my own family and i find it pretty true...young couples on bikes graduating to a kid in hand and the first car being one capable of accomodating kids in the backseat; the car changed as we grew and now it's a rarity that all four of us ever need to travel together in one car!!
that whay i say space is a luxury...we came squeezed in the womb and we go wound in bamboo to a pyre. what we do with our time in between is rather amusing. there have been volumes written on how pointless it is to change life, yet we all do. we crave the element of luxury. it makes us feel we've arrived...we've made it!

long time coming...

2009-02-20T08:00:00.000-08:00

it's been 52days since i last posted something on this veritable platform for my jumbled existence. not that i've been short of ideas, just short of inspiration to stay put and type out my head!
i've been through conflicting emotions relating to this blog. from,"why should i type out my emotions for people to read?" to, "who even reads this space??". And i'm nowhere close to deciding if this space should stay or go.
i dedicate this one to ms. swayamsiddha das. she made me cross out my last question as to who even bothers to check if i write, she does :) and she deserves this one from me for proving it to me that women, however smart and intelligent can never out do the incrutable jerk-ass emosinal atyachar of the male species! men are jerks. period
i am a jerk magnet, is another story! why do all men prove it one after another that their neurons are connected in the same obtuse manner such that they are all equally big idiots?
men please reply...

I'm a Barbie girl!

2008-12-30T09:39:00.000-08:00

barbie turns 50 today! not that i keep track of how old she gets, but today on the news they got random females to relate their relation to barbie and i decided she deserved one from me...because even though I'm trudging in my twenties, i still have all my barbies neatly stacked away with their box full of clothes and accessories! i don't remember when i got my first barbie or who gave it...but i remember my last. i gifted myself one on my 14th birthday and that too coz i couldn't resist. she was just so pretty! and partly because i felt angry at them for launching such beautiful and varied types, when all through my tender years they were almost all alike! so currently resting in the attic are 3 barbies, 1 skipper(for the uninitiated, she's Barbie's younger sister), 2 Kelly(her youngest sister) and hold your breaths...1 Ken(her boyfriend-i have the 80s one, only he's blond)!

if you ask me, Ken is my most priced possession. not coz he's a tall, handsome, blue-eyed blond male(:P), but because i know that at least in India, not many would have it. i don't know when it was launched here, i don't know exactly when it was banned(thanks to people who considered a boyfriend as a corrupting influence on 'indianness'), but i do know they happened in quick succession and somehow in the middle of all that my mother put in all her efforts to get me one. all because i said i wanted one! so of all the girls i know of around me, family school and college, I'm the only who can claim to have one!

as Aqua very rightly put it,

life in plastic, it's fantastic!
you brush my hair, undress me everywhere
IMAGINATION, THAT IS YOUR CREATION!

the last line i think best symbolises what barbie, over generations, has stood for. personally it was a way into life...how i pictured life, what i visualised my future to be, how love between humans was far more important than the lap of luxury, how i answered for myself the million questions of life! objectively they were family in some western concept, to me they were mine...i got to play fairy god mother, you see! i owe a lot to barbie. it kept me involved all day long, day after day for years. she's lived in bed sheet tents, pillow sheds, a 2 floor brick doll mansion(bhai built it all by himself for me), plastic box doll houses and even a shelf in my almirah(when i was tall enough to see in it and play comfortably too!).

she's worn clothes so impeccably stitched my me that i wonder why i didn't pursue design...ken's entire wardrobe was hand-made, since they were never available ready made. a pair of blue denims for all, a wedding lehenga, heavy sari(ma made), a two button formal suit for ken, a silk night suit and nightdress for barbie n ken resp, and as ma never fails to remind me, made from my silk kurta...apparently i thought it unfair that i should have a silk night suit, not them? that's all the wardrobe i remember working on...accessories were far easier to procure!

earrings, i remember, were promptly stuck in their head with no worries of trying to screw them on. bangles came from the metal rings around bhai's pens while shoes, slightly more permanent, were varied colour tapes! one obsession i had for my dolls were belts and bags-one for each occasion, one for every dress. now when i look at them, i wish i had those! my barbies always had a bath-twice a year! they had to scrubbed clean after a soak in warm water, their laundry was spread out to dry(our garden would resemble Lilliput for a day!) and their hair washed, conditioned(now i wonder why?) and blow dried. then I'd spend another day making their hair before setting them on the dining table in their finery for all to admire!
god! i love my barbies!

ps: the last pic is the only i could find of the barbie ken magazine! i've read a few..though not so archaic ones

winter's here!

2008-12-19T23:06:00.000-08:00

i woke up this morning to grey overcast skies and a new fresh chilly nip in the air, and i said to myself,"winter's here to stay!". coming out of the warm cozy realm of sleep n a warmer blanket, winter definitely didn't top my list of favorite things, rather my list of depressing things! suddenly the fear of life set in...what will i do when my vacations are over? how will i ever manage to pull out of bed at seven just to make it to college on time? how will i sit in my rather obviously depressing semblance of a classroom, without thinking and dreaming and most probably sleeping over thoughts of warm blankets and hot tea?! how?! this bit i knew i must...face my fears before they had the better of me...even go beg the hostel people to let me live! :(((( the more amusing(now that i think of it) and then depressing thoughts came with what I'd planned of my life. working in this hustling bustling metropolis in Europe(America doesn't appeal :P), living on my own and having this wonderfully good time, what scared me this morning was the fact that I'd not see my beloved sun! when i couldn't spot a yellow stain in the skies at half past ten this morning, how the hell will that happen the closer i move to the north pole? though the sun is bad for my skin, i still love its warmth, it's shine and its sheer presence...and i didn't realise i loved it so till now! the most amusing part of my dilemma was that if it's going to be cold, and hopefully snowing, how will i build up my wardrobe of skirts and frocks? jeans and stockings barely keep me warm enough for Delhi winter, how will i manage on my own in my dreams?! rather depressing and funny..if u see it from my perspective! i can already feel the quintessential horns of dilemma! clatter, clatter, clatter...zzzzz...it's chilly!

रास न आए हमारे...

2008-12-05T02:09:00.000-08:00

यह मेरा पहला प्रयास है हिन्दी में लिखने का। जो मुझे जानते हैं वोह यह भी जानते हैं कि हिन्दी मेरी मात्र भाषा होने के बावजूद मुझे हमेशा मात देती आई है। कई लोगों ने मुझे यह चुनौती, ज़िन्दगी के इस सफर मैं, कई बार दी कि मैं बिना अटके बिना रुके कुछ समय के लिए सिर्फ़ हिन्दी मैं बोलूं, और मुझे यह कहते हुए बहुत दुःख होता है, बहुत शर्म आती है, कि मैं इस चुनौती पे खरी नही उतर पायी। कहने को तो मैं हज़ार बहाने मार सकती हूँ, पर सच क्या है, क्यों है, यह तो शायद मैं भी नही जानती। अंग्रेज़ी हमारी ज़िन्दगी कि एक ऐसी लड़ बन चुकी है कि चाहे नचाहे एक न एक शब्द इस कम्बख्त ज़बान पे आ ही जाता है!
दुनिया है कि अपनी दौलत को संभाल के रखती है, हम हैं कि उसे ख़ुद से छोटा समझते हैं। जब भी मैं आगे किसोचती हूँ और बहार जाने का सपना देखती हूँ , तो हसी आती है कि मुझे अंग्रेज़ी का टेस्ट (देखा?) देना होगा...कभीयहाँ रहने के लिए हिन्दी का देना पड़ा तो मेरा क्या होगा? मैंने तो मुंशी प्रेम चाँद कि कहानियां भी अंग्रेज़ी मैं पढ़ीथी। कभी यह भी नही सूजा कि अपने हिंदुस्तान के महाराथिओं के उन चुनिन्दा काव्यों का रस मैंने नही पिया परविदेशी कथाओं पे लट्टू रही। सोच के भी अब बुरा लगता है।

आज मस्ती मैं इस पन्ने को हिन्दी मैं लिखने के चाह उठी
दूर दबे उन ख्यालों कि कश्ती उम्भ्री।
लिखने चली थी कुछ नग्मे प्यार के
दिल से बस एक आह निकली
चाहत थी कि इन लम्हों के संजोके संवारूंगी
आँसू हैं कि बहते हुए काजल की धार बन गई।
सोचने को तो बहुत है
दुनिया विशाल होते हुए भी, चोटी पर गई।
कहना चाहते थे अपने दिल की वोह खामियां
देख आपके अक्ष दिल की बस आस निकली
हस दें आप तो क्या बाहार आएगी
होटों पे हलकी सी जब मुसकुराहट छायेगी।

Control me not...

2008-12-05T01:21:00.000-08:00

this post comes for britney spears. I've never liked her music, I've never liked her life but frankly i can never ignore her. she burst onto the music scene a few years back as this teen singer who rolled out hits and empty-headed lyrics with groovy music, she went on to marry her back-up dancer(lucky guy?), gave birth to two kids in quick succession and made a wreck of everything she subsequently touched. she's been labelled a 'threat to herself and others', almost made it to an asylum and been into rehab countless times(at least for me). then y do i write this? a recent article cum interview in the Daily Mail talks of Britney today. Britney who's made a come back, one who's mending her ways, one who's not allowed to see her sons and one who earns enough so people can be paid to keep her in control. that's right. paid to keep her in control.

the article talks of the men who've taken control of a life that paying them. literally. her father, who she was estranged from till recently, a lawyer(don't even ask!) and body-guards who decide what where how she lives. frankly i don't give a damn! but what got me wondering was the way a mother was being kept from her own children. and it's not just her that i see and wonder over...a whole bunch of people kept away from their kin for someones good.

i agree people can be bad influences ,especially with children being so impressionable ,but who decides who's bad? you keep them away hidden from hurt and torture and make them endure the agony of separation and isolation? i understand i cannot be completely right with my conviction of "good or bad, it's family", but can the heartless wretches of social service be doing any good to two people who want to be together by keeping them apart?

life in my back yard

2008-11-29T02:32:00.000-08:00

thinking of all the deaths in mumbai, i look around the house and i find life. life not just as we know it, but new life and all forms of it.
there is a pigeon couple(if they have couples!) that had made their nest securely between the air-conditioner in 'my' room and the floor of the balcony. now skipping why the ac was taken off, the point is last night the pigeon and their nest were exposed to the big bad open world. ma and i finally came up with the idea of covering it with a shoe box, but it didn't work. finally after having scared the pigeons away twice, leaving the little chicks probably all scared and worried we managed to satisfy our worries and left it to nature and the pigeon's maternal instincts to take control from there. this afternoon when i woke up(yes afternoon, morning is going to bed time :P) ma informed me the chicks and their mommy were back on track...food n milk courtesy my mother's hospitality! as of now, they are comfortably sitting in my balcony and no one is allowed in it, lest we scare them again.
these pics i've loaded are really from my backyard. this nest was hidden in the leaves in a creeper!! i don't quite remember which bird but she definately wasn't around when i went photo hunting. the nest i remember quite clearly was very strategically hidden under the big leaves and practically suspended in mid-air. the chicks look so limbless(compared to my previous animated exposure!) and almost merge into the nest. the pigeon's chicks though, as i saw them last night in the moonlight, were much bigger, furrier and pale yellowish-whitish.

this parrot here is from the hollow barren tree across my house, and directly across my li'l cove. i simply love this snap...one major reason being i managed to click without shaking my hands!
the next two snaps are of a woodpecker...i'll try putting up the video too.

Chronicles of the U-Special

2008-10-15T07:54:00.000-07:00

GIRLS AND THEIR TRICK BOOK

2008-10-06T06:14:00.000-07:00

location: mom's workstation
day: monday evening
why am i here: didn't wanna travel...will take a ride home with ma.
why i write: just because i do :D

i have a travel companion. we make sure to check before leaving, coz we both hate travelling alone. we both talk on any and everything under the sun and frankly they are very insightful conversations. people often misinterpret our relation as romantic...ask me, it's far from it! a very cliched line, but we're good friends. not to waste time on that, let's come to the point. todays's conversation was ruled by love stories...mine, his and loads of other people's. we laughed, we blushed and we were in for suprises. such is love i'd say...never perfect. stories lead to analysis and analysis lead to what i've now labelled the 'Girls' trick book'. evrything i list here has been my travel companion's obseravtions and as a girl i must admit, they are very insightful, funny and freakingly true(to a large extent).

1. if girls like someone they'll try their best to get talking...but no first moves(for reference: A Lot Like Love, Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet). since they won't necessarily make a move, steps in the 'best friend' to guide the conversation along acting like a mutual friend till it's self sustainable and she's kicked out!

2. once they get talking, if they really like the guy then they'll try their best to set him up or atleast tease the guy with someone else. now my justification for this one(i've done it, hence i had to justify) is that she can't tell him to consider her...so she picks up random people with the hope that he'd reject them and fall on his knee to express his undying love for her instead. in built female optimism i'd say, coz as i was duly informed...it's bound to fall flat or badly backfire(tell me about it!).

3. if the girl still can't get the guy to notice her, she'll play for jealousy. tell him a story, make up a hero, create a legend!! as always...the guy happily says "good for you!" and poof!! vanishes, period.

4. if at all she's gathered the courage to ask him out...after having giving up on him, of course, she'll fumble and tumble and fiddle and twist and turn it so much that it might've been better she'd never started! it's weird and rejection is not a very good feeling...but still the girl risks it...

5. now apparently a female vying for attention is easy to spot. here i disagreed, though i was promptly dismissed. according to this particular guy, women state their intentions in clear and loud terms...u can tell when she's ready to play the field! a guy when he spots a female admirer in his radar is extra cautious, coz he knows he's being watched...why and wherefore he acts in the manner he does, is of course his personal tuning. and then they say women are difficult to understand! hypocrites...

come to think of it, i can list my 'romantic' bloopers pretty similiar to what i've stated, but unlike male mannerism, i can't be so heartless about it. to me love is sacred...i tread stupidly maybe, but i tread carefully. having seen absolute heartless pusuits and rebound affairs in abundance, i still hang to the hope that some guy will say to me that he'd rather have me, than all monica belluccis that i could pick out for him. ha, fat chance!!

:P

2008-10-06T06:10:00.000-07:00

i claim to write about english...but my heading for the last post is itself misspelt!!
the reason i chose to write a new post for it is that i acknowledge my stupidity
in case u still haven't figured(considering u rolled down to check), i've spelt an ISTHMUS as ISTHAMUS
somehow it doesn't feel better still...so if i've still not got it right, leave a note

english: isthamus or strait?

2008-09-27T05:48:00.000-07:00

There are always things each one of us takes for granted. What those may be, vary. I, for one, have taken my communication and language skills as an integral part of me for the last two decades, which is what drives me to share this piece with you…
The queen’s language might as well have been my mother tongue, and I wouldn’t bat an eyelid, but college has made me meet people who through no fault of theirs are often criticized for their lack of it.
Does having an English medium education all through your life make you any better qualified or any better suited to face life? How come in India our own mother tongue is so badly treated that those who hail from Hindi medium backgrounds are made to feel inferior and thus ignored, left behind and unknowingly chastised? I know this because I’ve seen it. And it doesn’t make me feel any better to realize that initially I’d reacted with incredulous amusement and horror. Blame it on my south Delhi hangover!
Today I write this because something broke my heart. A classmate, who I’d seen carrying a dictionary and a ready reference English-Hindi translation set in the first few months, was asked to explain the term inventory. Now considering it’s not a very good term to explain in terms of management, the kid fumbled and stumbled and our teacher lost his cool! He blasted him off saying preposterous things like that word forms basic English and how could a person who’d qualified this far, not know. Not know? Good lord! It just pained to see that person bear the humiliation in public.

Teachers are meant to be an understanding tool to the knowledge we aspire to gain. They are our guides, our mentors and often our philosophers…how then can they be, albeit unconsciously, so heartless?

If you wish see this, come watch a viva-voce of any of us. If you’ve ever stumbled, ever felt at a loss of words you’d know what I mean. And to think of those for whom the queen’s language is just a big barrier…

ah those days!

2008-08-16T03:36:00.000-07:00

watching those american chick flicks is good for the body(no exercise) and the brain(no exercise, again!). the guys are down right gorgeous, the leading woman is identifiably smart, not-so-sexy and gives a damn about it, the people are almost like what u've known through ur school life from the dick-head football captain to bimbette sluts, bespectacled nerds to good doing nobodies! how can generation after generation spread over continents, school still be so identifiably similiar?
what i write today is not about my school life and exactly how i'd classify my presence, or lack of it, but something that is absolutely hilarious, now that i look back at it. believe it or not, i was a cheerleader! and a downright good one at that. looking at me now or even these past few years it's hard to imagine me ever being so svelte and supple to be a cheerleader, but yes i was. the only reason i was one was that back in class 4/5 i was about the average height of a class 9 chick...who were the cheerleaders in fact. i was picked because:
1. i was as tall as them(lord they must have been short!)
2. my built sorta compensated for my obvious lack 'curves' and a bust at the age of 10!
3. since i played basketball(people assumed i must be good since i was tall), the coach knew me and the 'didis' adored me(that, i later figured, was all thanks to my brother who studied in the school rt across mine and obviously had attracted some female attention).
4. our convent was running short(haha...pun unintended!) of suitable ladies for this job

so there i was...daily being escorted from the junior school to the senior school wing for my practice. truthfully the part i loved best was getting to play with my pom-poms!! i had red and silver ones and it was soooooooooo good! much better infact than those trots and jumps and twists and loops. LC was to host the basketball tournament n this was the opening ceremony...n i the youngest participant!
i haven't thought of this li'l event for so long that details skip me. i remember faces, not names; my dress, not the day. no one outside school knew i did something that can be classified as cheerleading in a black bodysuit with a red skirt over it, no one asked, i told no one. no one asked me how it looked, how i felt and no one came to see. at least no one i knew!
but i did...n that's the best part! i've been a cheerleader :D

tales of love

2008-08-08T00:22:00.001-07:00

Some quotes I've read n heard:

A man may plant his seed anywhere he wishes to, it's a woman's job to restrict it to one- Everybody Loves Raymond
I don't love you enough to hate you-Kamasutra
The opposite of love is not hate. it's indifference. if you hate someone, means u still care-Desperate Housewives
Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love- Neil Gaiman
You know when i hate you, it's because i love you to a point of passion that unhinges my soul- Julie de Lespinasse
Meeting you was fate, becoming your friend was choice, but falling in love with you i had no control over
No woman hates a man for being in love with her, but many a woman hate a man for being a friend to her- Alexander pope
oh, I've loved him too much to feel no hate for him- J Baptiste Racine
I must learn to love the fool in me the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries- Theodore Isaac Rubin

in defense

2008-07-16T00:26:00.000-07:00

i write this today in defense of a movie that's faced a lot of flak from all quarters for being a piece of insanity. it's taken me over a year to get my hand onto this one...not that it was unavailable, just that no one i knew had it, or would ever let me be convinced or motivated enough to watch it. i remember when it released along side the head-ache grosser called om shanti om, people were initially divided and most ended up watching both. i, on the other hand watched neither. i barely watch movies in the theatre coz my friends n i can never agree on movies to watch, where to watch and what time. so sad it may sound...'m a clg student who barely bunks clg to watch movies.

om shanti om made people laugh because of it's sheer senselessness. it made me hold my head and doubt my sanity when i did around to watch it. people around me were going gaga over SRK, in love with the line "ek chutki sindoor ki keemat aap kya jano something babu?", it made people hum and laugh. those who watched saawariya hated it...it's all blue they said, it's a chitrahaar they called it, it's eewww! when i declared recently that i watched saawariya n liked it...i was declared crazy!

i stand by what i feel. saawariya is beautiful. I'm no movie buff, I'm no avant-garde expert...but i haven't seen such a spectacle. the moon...with the intricate patterns to show the darkness; the streets...unlit to show privacy; the river...to show the eternal divide between the lover and the loved; the bridge...our catalyst in the union; the umbrella...sakina's preparedness to face hardship; music...the universal language; shades of blue all through the movie...couldn't have been replaced; the flowers lining the pot holed road...beauty with the beast; the prostitute...friendship in unlikely quarters.
i can go on and on about what where and how it appeals. the camera moves ever so slightly to show the amused fear, the jilted lover and the sole tear on a smile. the lights are there, somewhere...they don't glare ontot he face to show u layers of make-up. they play with the emotion. it's garish, it's subtle, it's loud, it's soothing...it's a wonderful love story, where not everyone gets their love.

Mind over Body

2008-07-14T09:19:00.000-07:00

i am not a feminist, as some people consider me. i do find myself at odds with people when treatment of females is considered. i don't like the downtrodden way women are treated at each step of the way, getting the raw deal in life. elaborate l8r, or just ask me when u meet me. i don't also ask for favours, as most people consider women liberation to be all about. i just ask for equality. you be you, let me be me!
this one's about how my self made principles gave me a bumpy ride. buses in Delhi are a nightmare. men in those buses, nine cases out of ten, are horny bastards. if i could shoot them, they'd be in line before the auto wallahs who consider it their right to over charge. at least they only rob me of my money, and that too at face value, not my innocence and dignity in "oops! madam jagah nahi hai kya karun?" style. those are the times i wish i could just slap, kick, castrate and dump the entire male population of Delhi. i just can't...i know good men too, and i thank the lord for them!
today i had an exceptionally long journey to make into a part of delhi I've never been to. i insisted to travel on my own n learn n declare myself a big girl...no more mamma's li'l baby(though I'll always be one :)). standing in that over crowded bus, i saw the ladies seats had been promptly occupied by guys. three of them, pretty young. i kept standing. it was long ago that I'd decided I'll never ask for a seat. the guy sitting on it could be just as exhausted as i! so i kept standing. the three guys, young blokes, couldn't spell chivalry if they wanted to, n how i missed chivalry!
women came in l8r, who managed to get a few seats my ordering the men sitting to stand. not even requesting...more like whacking their heads n looking down their noses. i kept hanging. those guys had some nerve to remain seated even after those aunties(can't call them anything else) had done everything but call the police.
i was so tempted to join them. i was already tired, hanging onto the rod for sacred space to rest my feet on and keeping my bag on my shoulders. but i couldn't. i wouldn't. to join them would be against my battle for equality. my self appointed battle in every sphere of life. i was losing.
finally a guy's stop came. he first tapped on my knee...that's all he could get to i guess. he then asked me to take his seat when he vacated it. the world made sense again! i wouldn't shower him for praises for telling me his seat would be available for a micro second, but i do thank him. never did i expect any one to offer me his seat, i would've declined anyway! but for whatever reason, i did manage a seat a little beyond the halfway.
i finally got to my no man's land. or better, no woman's land

Of Tonga rides...

2008-07-06T11:52:00.000-07:00

Last saturday was supposed to be my day out with my parents and indeed it was, albeit a little out of the ordinary, but none the less a lot fun. It was decided we’ll head for Sadar Bazaar for some deal hunting and exploration of our own. This is our hobby…go exploring a part of the city that’s absolutely unknown to us after having done our basic homework as to what’s available and how much to pay for it.

Once at Paharganj, we had to choose our mode of transport to get to our destination. Our car was safely parked away at the metro station close by. Mom of course picked a rickshaw, but I had a better idea…a tonga! I so wanted to get on one, just for fun, though I’d never imagined I’d manage to do so in the heart of Delhi. So it was, the three of us atop a tonga and hardly able to keep our teeth in! My mother was laughing all the way, dad was holding on tight and completely avoiding the horse’s tail and I was trying to keep my feet in so I don’t hit a cycle or an auto that stops behind us. Good God I had so much fun…I’d happily do it again J

The rest of the escapade was the typical exploration filled with ooos and aaahhs. Each of these places remind me how protected a life I’ve led. Standing in the middle of Asia’s biggest wholesale market I had this feeling that I know where to get whatever there is to be bought. There is talk of life in the fast lane…I saw people busy with their work and sprinting away with loads more than just what’s on their shoulders in lanes as wide as my dad n me side by side, even narrower. But no one stopped for anyone, people didn’t offer us water when we got in and they especially didn’t seem very happy to see a bunch of giggling adults just picking a piece or two of random things. This place was hardcore trading and a business hub and I doubt a classy, clean, air conditioned, marble floored skyscraping centre would make the same amount of money as these people here.

I wish I had better skills and more patience to relate to you what I saw today and what each of those narrow lanes brought out of me. It may sound weird but each place I go to I make my own rapport with it, and I feel the place the place respond. Today’s was not a picturesque journey but nonetheless it was worth capturing the sheer madness of the critical equilibrium that place runs on

jumping into in

2008-06-26T09:36:00.000-07:00

today i went shopping. nothing so great anyway, i do that for purely fun reasons and often stress busting, but today i had a reason and behind my quest for that elusive piece of clothing that'll stop me in my tracks, was my personal vendetta to see if i manage to find my size! not a very ego-boosting affair when any and every damn thing is unfit...shoes that don't fit , shirts that look like they'll tear, skirts that are too short, bangles which are too big(exceptions :D) and my tastes which are too expensive and ideas too wild!
i'm rather excited...in a bad way. although i did manage to fit into clothes today at first shot, i was pretty disheartened at the range available. in the tiny trial rooms, where more often than not i manage to hit my hand on the ceiling or the whiny fan, i came to a sudden conclusion: are clothes designed keeping in mind anorexic female who have no curves to speak of? i definitely agree. why else would shirts have the same width on the top as say more towards the waist? even cherubic(don't even dare call me fat) people like me call claim to have some difference in the two! god shopping is so stressing!
this post is utter crap...i just had to vent off my frustration in someway without getting too graphic about female clothing n fitting. i'm just happy i managed to find what i needed after having to pull it over me n often jumpin into it!

the long and the short of it

2008-06-19T06:44:00.000-07:00

i saw this female today in a pair of shorts. were i guy, you would be better able to understand my fascination with that item of clothing. but nevertheless i'll try. you see it had been a part of my school uniform n i had to wear it whether or not i was comfortable carrying a a very badly stitched, riding up the legs, cotton blend shorts and not just in school but the also on the walk back home. the latter is what was the worst thing that you can imagine.
it is any mother's nightmare and mine's no exception. a young girl, with a rather developed body(embarrassing), walking down the deserted colony road on hot summer days in something as awful as those particular shorts...don't even remind me! i did have a stray incident or two too, though ma never got to hear of those, i was rather terrified as it is, didn't want ma to curfew the society. i know she's capable of doing it if required.
the solution thankfully came in a few years down the line. we got track pants for winter sports uniform which after much fighting and grumbling and growling i adopted as my all year through
sports uniform. i finally got rid of those god forsaken shorts!
looking back at those shorts i often wonder they couldn't have been so bad afterall. a certain person i know wore it all through 1st year of college. girls, mostly, loved it coz they got to flaunt their well toned legs and well it was conveniently modified to hot-pants length to work to their advantage. i never seemed to like that. call it under confidence in myself thanks to my potato sack figure or repulsion at the idea of being treated like an object by the cassanovas of school, either way i didn't like it.
only time i loved wearing it was when i had to lead my house-Perfection- for the annual sports meet. a matter of pride! not only i was leading my house, i enjoyed the surprise in my classmates eyes when they saw i too had legs!! i think by that time i was out of my gawky teen mode and much more comfortable with my body than previously when i struggled to look at myself in the mirror.
i still crave that 'perfect' figure. i still manage to put a potato to shame, but i don't hide now. i'm happy i've finally accepted me!

blah

2008-06-17T07:11:00.000-07:00

its a wonder i continue to write here. no one reads this...

justice for all?

2008-05-31T03:40:00.000-07:00

reading my previous blog entries i came across this:

it's suprising to say the least that i could write things about other people's lives...i usually stick to me. noting that Nitish katara's murder case has finally led to some sort of justice, my first thoughts go to the BITS mesra student, Abhishek. what happened to him? where did his battle for justice vanish?
i asked my father this first thing in the morning and his prompt reply was: case daba diya!
i only stand and wonder why.

Virtual Exhibition :D

2008-05-31T03:03:00.000-07:00

what i do when i can't do anything else is either make rhymes, or draw anything in sight. i've finally decided i'm ready for an exhibition(haha!).
welcome to my virtual exhibition of my 'works'. shot by my handy phone camera of varying resolutions, i present my two canvasses n sketches i could find.
though i doubt anyone's reading this, do say something this time if u can.
tada

painting fishes

2008-05-25T23:45:00.000-07:00

it's an absolute magic i manage to get something written here. all day long when either i can't access the net or when i'm studying i come up with such brilliant things to write on, sort my ideas out, pick a name and even build its body. but as soon as i'm online, i write utter crap like this!
can't be blamed, i think at the most unusual of places and times that it's impossible to follow it up like this.
now i finally have an idea! think purple.
those who know me, will know my fascination for this colour and its all encompassing shades. i have so many purples that i've managed to go to college for a week in only purple wear(baring my jeans, that is). i have purple reeboks(my latest :)), i have purple shirts, tshirts, sweat shirts, sweaters, shorts and even kurte! i just don't know how i managed to collect all these...i never shop with a particular colour in mind. coincidence.
the latest purple is my room. my mother bought me blue-pink-purple curtains long back and yesterday when the house was being repainted i opted for a light pinkish purple to adorn my walls. call it obsession if you must, i simply love my royal colour fetish. it shouts, "shivani's room!".
the beauty of purple(not violet) i feel, is it blends beautifully with any colour. wear it over black, it brings out the paleness and the boldness of the colours; couple it with blue, it perfectly complements it; top it up with red, it looks like a blueberry mousse on a cinnamon cake!
the best thing i've done till now with that purple-pink paint? paint fishes and stars on the aqua coloured wall of my reading room. blobbing colour of freshly painted walls with a roughly made stencil is so much fun...you can't go deathly wrong on that fresh wall, coz it won't be repainted and then u'll be stuck with blobs of colour on your walls. but i've managed a decent job and my li'l aquarium looks so adorable with purple fishes :D

btw: the aqua is this colour and pink-purple this

Fine Arts

2008-03-01T23:52:00.000-08:00

Fine Arts, conjures up an image of something that requires a flair for the arts, a talent for the brush strokes and of course a lot of sense of design. And when all of that is supposed to be brought out in our college…uhmm, don’t get me started! At the end of it all, I think it was worth the effort each one of us put in from making a list of requirements to putting up our make-shift registration desk and especially pulling the crowd. One day we had events that were overflowing from our schedules and no people to assist us, while the very next most of them had been scraped and much to our relief and disappointment that day and horror the next, all of them were back on schedule!

Day 1

The day had an exciting start. We didn’t know where to start! We had no stalls no desks and of course no crowd in sight. Hauling a tent house’s rickety table, decorating our corner with satin drapes, painting our banner in random fonts and a whole lot of bonding later, we were ready for our events. Lined up for the day we had FACE PAINTING, TATTOO MAKING and HAIR STYLING.

As people poured in from colleges afar, their talent spoke louder than the blaring sound checks in the OAT. Imaginations and issues ran parallel and judges. I bet, had a tough call. See for yourself

Day 2

Picking up the threads from the previous day, the next had SKETCHING and WALL PAINTING. When the registration sheets got filled in faster than we could keep track of, we could but smile at the little successes we were experiencing. Watching heads bent over a piece of art that spoke volumes about its creator, listening to distant blaring of guitars in unison, soaking in the soft sunshine…Saturdays never seemed better. And when those sheets returned, we could only laugh, stare and marvel.

Wall painting turned out to be more fun than expected. It’s not everyday you get to do graffiti on college walls and splash colour all around! TnP walls, the usual somber looking sandstone, looked a like the RDB rebel wall!

And to top it all i didn't regret spending my 20th bday running around working! even my bday cake had to wait, and then all the cream on my face had to wait to be washed off! Boy, were my friends mad!

Day 3

If you had to make an ad for a hair gel using a drafter what would you do? Give up? But not these guys! Day 3 saw DAD OF ADS, PAINTING and COLLAGE MAKING. Dad of Ads was a concept prop based ad making competition and we just had a lot of fun giving random products with even worse props! Slippers for soap, pillow for a washing powder and muffler for a drink! This one takes my vote for the best creativity. Short, witty and down right serious comedy…they left you convinced that a good salesman can even sell your own stuff to you!

Each participant, every moment of the three days that made up the Fine Arts of Abhyudaya was worth missing all the ‘good’ bits. A bunch of unknowns came together and we left as friends. We shouted, we screamed, we sang songs…we did our job. And we did it well!

language deprieved

2008-02-24T02:49:00.000-08:00

just logging onto blogger and reading the date of my last post as one in dec makes me realise i'm seriously suffering from a minor attack of 'writer's block'! i've got so much to say and so little time to actually sit down in front of my pc, type and still make sense of my jumbled up thoughts that a sunday afternoon just has to sacrifice its sleep for the literary cause :D
emoticons, i've come to notice, rule our lives. i wasn't intending to write on emotions displayed by a sickly yellow faced non-human like thing, but when i placed that beaming grin at the end of my sentence just so that the reader may know that i am in a happy mood, i realised that maybe i don't trust my writing skills any more than i trust the intelligence of a chihuahua. sad simile. sadder topic.
moving onto why i've chosen language today as my topic of choice, my sense of grammar and pure language have gone down the western yamuna canal that flows nest to my d'ling college! i simply crave for a challenging conversation that will make me dig out words i know but chose to ignore, make me sit up and make an effort to be flawless in my line of thought and perfect in my diction! ahh...what days! as of my current situation, any speech slurring grammar marauding piece of crap will pass because it achieved its aim of getting the point across! i'm getting hyper about it because i miss good language. my own vocabulary is so varied now that i can count the number of swear words i know beyond my ten fingers. bad thing to flaunt but thats all i get to hear everyday all around me and practically used as an endearment for my friends who then have the gall to pretend that 'good' girls shouldn't listen to all this and actually make us close our ears, when they realise we're in earshot. phew!
the weirdest thing is when i come home after five days of pure college with its freedom, bad food, lingo at al i take time to get back to having things being done for me and actually behaving myself! i use my college lingo(see the effect on language?) with my unsuspecting parents, esp ma, and leave them boggled about precisely what i said! issme koi fight nai hai...panga tab hota hai jab ***** ma ke samne yaad nai aata ki main apne hi ghar pe hon!
so hoping i get some freaking good convos real soon so that i may mind my language!

Delhi International Arts Festival

2007-12-17T22:25:00.000-08:00

life has its many firsts. the DIAF was a very attractive multi event, multi venue affair. the only drawback I'm a sunset Cinderella in a city labeled unsafe for women and i doubt I'd ever be big enough to be let out for such things unchaperoned by a member of family. so moving out of self loathing misery let's get to the point.

oridssi:
on 16th dec my parents and i were witness to the opening of the classical dance segment of DIAF and it was splendid!
the evening under the sprawling branches of the peepal tree on also the coldest delhi day, began with mrs. sanjukta mohapatra performing oridssi. she's the disciple and daughter-in-law of famous oridssi exponent late shri kelucharan mohapatra. i've previously only seen oridssi in school and never could(and still can't) tell the difference between the various mudras in the various classical dance forms! i doubt they're different at all so majorly but for me they do mostly the same stuff in different dresses! i never thought i'd ever say such things about a beauty that is dance, but ignorance brings out the trash. so the dance we enjoyed began with a ganesh vandana and then a prayer to lord vishnu. these were followed by dance presentations on a poem and the very beautifully done-varsha. I've never watched a professionally done dance and with such reverence...it was touching! i don't know what else to say... my hands are frozen!

kuchipudi:
the second piece of the evening was a dance performance by the very famous couple-raja and radha reddy. before the dance began i was showered by snippets of well known information like he's got two wives-radha reddy and kaushalya reddy, each has a daughter who've both completed school etc. soon enough the attraction of the night himself came forward on stage and gave a li'l explanation of what was to come...shiv lila! he mentioned why he's called the neelkanth, umasutham and mrityunjaya and also a little tale of the demon tripura! i only sat wondering why a whole state in a deeply religious country of ours would be named after a demon, considering superstition almost in every way rules our lives. but then we love contradiction don't we? so now that mr reddy explained the whats and the whys of his dance performance,i just waited for the how! it started pretty slow...mr and mrs just entered from ends of the stage and started moving around in circles...literally! then it picked pace with mrs kaushalya reddy doin the rhythmic toda bit...man i loved it! the ballet carried on in much the same way as he'd mentioned with beautiful characterisations of and by the couple, facial expressions and mudras. now since I'm no art critique nor an avid follower of dance of any kind, i'll stick to my version and impressions. it was good but the petite mrs reddy was seemingly getting too old for this while the chill seemed to have travelled up mr reddy's leg. i mean no disrespect to these very talented far superior seniors, but then 'bandar kya jane adrak ka swad!'. so basically it was something new, something good and something that went over my head after knocking some sense into it!
lesson of the day: i should've stuck to learning bharatnatyam when i got an awesome teacher instead of showing him how adamant a donkey i could be! boohoo...i started making wrong decisions when i couldn't even spell it!

modern ballet:
on the 17th, monday, we went to catch a contemporary dance performance by a group from the Slovak republic. the presentation was titled "night peace". momma chose the dance over kathak and manipuri because we'd had enough of open air theatres and chilly evenings and as kamani
auditorium is far better, we headed to it! we got there a li'l late, though just in time for the dance. I'll give you my interpretation of the ballet...i have no idea of what was meant to be portrayed or what was. going by the title of night, here is what i picked up: night falls among chaos and people having spent all day in their own activities, in their own world at their own leisure, forget that there is a world beyond their own. to them every stranger is a nobody, you'd not even register their presence were they to stare at you in your face. the night brings to you its own gifts of peace and rest, but the human psyche always has a zillion things to do before it goes to bed. no one stops to take the selfless gifts she brings, no one wants it. period. you've got parties to attend, people to meet and of course carnal pleasures to be attained, but the night can
wait. then comes the burn out! life comes to a standstill and you just land up like a log on the bed. once the sleep takes over that is when life's beauty actually comes forward. but sleep is hard enough, dreams are harder. you've got to fight the demons of the life in daylight in the darkness of your head, you've got to get it out of your system. peace can only reign when the place for it is free of clutter that blocks the drainage system of the mind! that is when night becomes peaceful...that is when life becomes beautiful! relationships becomes clearer and emotions becomes sort themselves out. love pours through life! this is night! this is peace!
we had to walk out towards the end due to lack of comprehension by my company, so i'm not sure how it all ended but i do know(and console myself with) that we didn't miss much.
my cheeky comments go like this: the guys were very good...tall well built good looking hunks! their dancing agility made me realise that if i were to roll like they were, I'd keep on rolling like a cylinder! all in all a good show, with typical Indian humour and movie like comments. the best ones i heard went like,"yaar yeh to saanwariya style hai, samajh nai aayega!"; when the music went boom like a bomb, a little baby cried making the whole crowd laugh out real loud! next time the baby spoke, it was a cute giggle when they were trying to portray the self-demons being fought and most people thought she had a terrible itch, one guy even said she was a chicken!!

bharatnatyam:
since we still had time on our hands and momma wanted to see the youth festival, we headed to ashok hotel's amphitheatre just when bharatnatyam group dance began. a young duet was on, and was done very beautifully. i mean it...vigour and vitality severely contrasted with ageold movements of the day before. the last piece presented was a group dance titled "geet govindam" and was an outlet of gopis' love for lord krishna. good coordination, simply to comprehend and
quite tastefully presented. i enjoyed it, and thankfully so did my parents!

muzok: fusion music
the last jig of the day was a fusion music band. this one from kiromal college's music society. i had absolutely no expectations and since i'd never heard of them, or heard them, i simply waited. guitars rolled out. the usual. a synthesier was placed, i yawned. a tabla came, i took interest. a violin and dholak followed, i decided my parents will now sit easy. the guys came out and my eyes were wide open! now we're talking...they looked pretty much like the rest of 18-21 yr olds i know, but still i soaked in all at offer. :D hehehe! then came the pin prick-pa says,"kitne lousy ladke hain, koi bhi khana nai khata kya?". does he always do it on purpose? oh whatever! so now back to the band...tehy began with a female choir doing a prayer, then a duet choir doin the necessary desh bhakti, then a powerful rehman composition to top it up! by this time, my mother is thoroughly bored! then they bring on bruce springsteen's june! yahoo! umm, well, my parents are looking at my beaming face...wondering if they're finally on my turf! bring it on! so they...and the cutest guy is the lead singer, ah my luck! if only we'd stayed till after their jig, i could've known his name. but then my parents had had enough. so here we come to an end of my diaf...i think so.

another year

2007-11-30T08:08:00.000-08:00

a year gone by
and still it feels like new
the things i've said here alone
make me all the more easier for you!

another year of blogging...more coming up!

Spirited Stories

2007-10-02T03:06:00.000-07:00

Getting into the mood of writing is not very easy for me. There are the dry months and then there are days like these when each morning I decide to revive my darling blog. So today I’ve decided to share my talli experiences with who ever will care to read this stuff!

Having an older sibling meant starting early with everything...basically following them blindly! So when they decided to explore alcohol at their ‘proper’ age this baby as a faithful sidekick promptly followed them around just wanting to take a sip! Naughty baby ;)

so what if our first bottle of beer had to be washed down the bathroom sink because neither of us liked the taste or smell of it? It taught me to wait till my proper age! Good bottle of beer! And it taught to stay away from beer forever too. Wine, whiskey, vodka and gin...ah, well they came in much later and stayed more like tasting jobs needing to be accomplished.

Wine, white wine, will stay special to me for reasons beyond the high. I got my glass of wine a day before my maths' pre-board and I managed to score a 98 with an almost hangover beating drums of hell in my head! it was almost all thanks to a jerk I happened to know back then, who thought I was kidding in the middle of the night, but then realised I wasn't because I was really talking drunkard crap! So you see wine wonders!

People may say Johnny Walker is expensive and delicate. But how many of those people have washed down their whiskey glasses in the rain because it was too strong? I did! On a chilly February night, with a thunderous rainstorm beating down on a hapless city, somewhere a youngster decides to taste the god’s drink. It tastes okay by adult standards but yucky by Hershey’s chocolate syrup standards. So well the rains had to wash over all sins!

The ‘vodka and gin affair’ happened on a very important day. In the morning my bosom buddy decided I had to be initiated into the very important phase of life and took it upon her to do the honours! So before much ado we were sitting with vodka in our hands trying to act as if we’ll gulp it down like grape juice…only trouble its fermented grape juice and it tastes and smells awful! So somehow I managed to finish my drink and felt elated that I’d had my first drink! Wow! Man my head is swinging and is the same sun that’s just shining brighter?

The evening came and my parents decided that should their daughter drink, she might as well do it with them. So I got to choose my drink and I chose a ‘lady-like’ Gin. Only trouble its drier and hits harder than vodka! At least with me it did. So I did a very lady-like thing of passing my drink to my saviour-my brother, who though is not much of a gin person, very nicely finished it for me. Thanks dude!

So basically I’ve had my share of spirits and alcohol adventures and somehow coming to the conclusion that it isn’t quite my drink, has been more satisfying than perhaps other frustrated females who are just told that ladies don’t drink. My foot!

Alcohol has been an adventure that’ll continue as long as this world shall exist. But to be able to taste it, label it unpalatable and then gloat about it has its own high!

Cheers to life!